Annual American Composers Update
Victoria Bond
Victoria Bond is a New York, NY resident. Music historian
Adrienne Fried Block is writing Bond's entry in the latest
New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Artistic
director of the Harrisburg (PA) Opera Company and the
Wuhan (China) Symphony Orchestra, Bond also has made 1998
guest conducting appearances with the Greenville (SC)
Symphony, the Hudson Valley (NY) Philharmonic, the Flagstaff
(AZ) Symphony, the Hunan (China) Symphony Orchestra, and
for Ray Charles concerts with the Louisville (KY) Orchestra
and with the Honolulu Symphony (in Kona, HI). She will
conduct
Madame Butterfly with Opera Carolina, Mar.
25-28, 1999. Articles published in 1997 included "My Encounter
with Brahms," in the Mar./Apr.
Symphony Magazine,
and "The Opera Brahms Never Wrote," in the Dec.
Opera
News. At the annual National Opera Association convention,
in New York, NY, Jan. 8, 1999, Bond and librettist Ann
Goethe discussed the creation of
Travels, showed
taped scenes from its 1995 Opera Roanoke (VA) production,
and hosted a "Women in Opera" panel, focusing on prominent
women conductors and composers.
Premieres
In 1998, Glen Cortese led the Manhattan (NY) Philharmonia
in the premiere of
Variations on a Theme of Brahms,
at Bordon Hall (Feb. 6), followed by a performance at
the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Feb. 7). Pianist
Paul Barnes and the Filharmie Bohuslava Martinu orchestra,
under Kirk Trevor, presented
Black Light, in Zlin,
The Czech Republic, Nov. 27-29, 1997.
Performances
Dawn Buckholz Andrews played
Monologue, for solo
cello, at Christ and St. Stephen's Church, in New York,
NY. On May 18, 1997, Jean Sze and Miao Yi Min performed
Chi, for zheng and bamboo flute, at the Lower Brandywine
Church in Chadds Ford, PA. Steven Alltop led the Northwestern
University Philharmonia in
Urban Bird, June 3,
1997, in Evanston, IL. The Festival Musica Nova, Aug.
20, 1997 in Santos, Brazil, included
Thinking like
a Mountain, with the composer conducting. At a master
class at the Beijing (China) Conservatory,
Dreams of
Flying and
Thinking Like a Mountain were heard,
Jan. 4, 1998.
Recordings
Black Light, piano concerto; Barnes and The Martinu
Philharmonic, Trevor conducting;
Koch
International.
Further Information
