David Froom: MTNA/Shepherd Distinguished Composer 2006.

David Froom: MTNA/Shepherd Distinguished Composer 2006. The 2006 MTNA/Shepherd Distinguished Composer 2006 David Froomcomposed "Lightscapes" to fulfill his commission from theMaryland State Music Teachers Association. "Lightscapes" is awork for flute and piano in three movements; each of the movement titlesrefers to light. The first movement, "Radiant," moves gentlyand evenly, with ideas flowing smoothly between the piano and flute. Thesecond movement, "Coruscating cor��us��cate?intr.v. cor��us��cat��ed, cor��us��cat��ing, cor��us��cates1. To give forth flashes of light; sparkle and glitter: diamonds coruscating in the candlelight.2. ," drives forward with strongrhythmic momentum, using a small number of ideas that recur in variousguises at unpredictable times as a way of evoking brilliant lightglinting in different directions off a single entity (like a crystal ora river). The last movement, "Lambent," is a kind ofaccompanied flute recitative recitative(rĕs'ĭtətēv`), musical declamation for solo voice, used in opera and oratorio for dialogue and for narration. Its development at the close of the 16th cent. made possible the rise of opera. , and uses spare and simple textures tocreate the impression of softly glowing light. This piece was written inthe fall of 2006 for the flutist Lucille Goeres (whose first namesuggested the idea of music about light). Goeres and pianist Eliza Garthgave the premiere performance at St. Mary's College of Maryland St. Mary's College of Maryland, established in 1840, is a public liberal arts college located in St. Mary's City, Maryland. It is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. inNovember of 2006, as well as its performance at the CFMTA/-MTNA/-RCMConference in Toronto, Ontario, in March 2007. Froom is no newcomer to receiving recognition for his achievementin composition. He studied with some of the most notable names incomposition of the latter quarter of the twentieth 20th century,including Chou Wen-chung This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chou. Chou Wen-chung (; pinyin: Zhōu W��nzhōng, surname Chou, b. June 29, 1923) is a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. , protege of Edgard Varese and integrator ofmusical traditions of the East and the West; Pulitzer Prize Pulitzer PrizeAny of a series of annual prizes awarded by Columbia University for outstanding public service and achievement in American journalism, letters, and music. Fellowships are also awarded. winner MarioDavidovsky Mario Davidovsky (born March 4, 1934) is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US where he lives today. He is best known for his series of compositions under the name Synchronisms ; Alexander Goehr, student of Messiaen, as well as the son ofthe conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr; and composer,conductor, and percussionist William Kraft. He holds degrees from theUniversity of California at Berkeley (body, education) University of California at Berkeley - (UCB)See also Berzerkley, BSD.http://berkeley.edu/.Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not /bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation. , the University of SouthernCalifornia The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission , and Columbia University. While Froom freely acknowledges theextraordinary advantages of such an education, he hates the idea that acomposing career might involve competition among composers. Instead, hechooses to focus his energy on being part of the collective desirecomposers have to create and, through teaching, helping to proliferategood music. Froom has received honors and awards in abundance during his careeras a composer. Among the many organizations that have bestowed honorsupon him are American Academy of Arts and Letters (Academy Award, IvesScholarship), the Guggenheim, Fromm, Koussevitzky, and BarlowFoundations, the Kennedy Center (first prize in the Friedheim Awards),the National Endowment for the Arts National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)Independent agency of the U.S. government that supports the creation, dissemination, and performance of the arts. It was created by the U.S. , and the state of Maryland (fourIndividual Artist Awards). He had a Fulbright grant for study atCambridge University, and fellowships to the Tanglewood Music Festival The Tanglewood Music Festival is the oldest music festival in the United States. It is held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. ,the Wellesley Composers Conference, and the MacDowell Colony. Evidence of the desire to share his love of music lies in the manyyears Froom has dedicated to teaching. He has taught at the Universityof Utah The University of Utah (also The U or the U of U or the UU), located in Salt Lake City, is the flagship public research university in the state of Utah, and one of 10 institutions that make up the Utah System of Higher Education. , the Peabody Conservatory, and, since 1989, St. Mary'sCollege of Maryland, where he is professor and chair of the musicdepartment. Froom considers his first challenge in teaching compositionto be that of helping students toward a basic technique within a basiccontext. He hopes to guide them toward being able to put down on paperwhat they hear in their heads, and to help them know how to spin theseinitial fragments into fully fledged expressions. This, of course, mustbe done within the basic context of knowing enough 20th/21st-CenturyMusic music to know what some of the possibilities are. From there, thefocus shifts to helping them explore their own musical personalities.The greatest challenge, he says, is that in a world without clear anduniversally accepted compositional leaders, students, at a very earlyage, are expected to find their own unique way, in essence, to leadthemselves. Froom believes that he can help by being nonjudgmental non��judg��men��tal?adj.Refraining from judgment, especially one based on personal ethical standards.Adj. 1. nonjudgmental aboutstylistic choices, but within any style he must show students howcomposing is a matter of embracing or rejecting possibilities. He triesto let students draw him into their worlds, where he first confirms withthem that he understands what they are trying to do. He then tries tohelp them see, within their own style, the wealth of possibilities opento them. Froom has spoken and written about the state of affairs in which wefind new music today. In an article published in Contemporary MusicReview, 1994, Vol. 10, Part 1, pp. 3-10 [[c] 1994 Harwood AcademicPublishers BmbH], he validates the "age-old complaint thatcomposers who write challenging music simply are not fully appreciatedin their own time--with a few notable exceptions, they never havebeen." He believes that "our popular music recording industry... created a huge market for music both as pure entertainment and asbackground noise.... Generalized musical background sound is now sopervasive that it is unusual not to hear music in a store, a restaurant,an elevator, a place of business, or while on hold on the phone."He goes on to explain that, "... unfortunately, this training notto listen is what is brought to the concert hall.... [Many in theaudience] have lost the concept of listening as an activity in and ofitself." He concludes this article with an astute observation concerning thecurrent status of living composers: "The influences shared by mygeneration show explicitly in our music.... Although musically thedissimilarities among us ... seem to have brought about a lack of strictadherence to any single dogma (the serial composers are less rigidlyserial, the minimal composers less minimal, etc.) and a concomitantinterest in a wide variety of approaches to the act of composing. Thisseems to me to be the first step on the road back to a common language,or at least to ... a shared vision. It is as if we had all arrived atthe same spot, but were looking in different directions: while the viewsare all different, we are breathing the same air, weathering the samestorms, ... Maybe most important, we now seem willing to value eachothers' presence." Works by Froom have been performed extensively throughout theUnited States by major orchestras, ensembles, and soloists, including,among many others, the Louisville, Seattle, Utah, and ChesapeakeSymphony Orchestras, The United States Marine and Navy Bands, theChamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Twentieth Century Consort,the New York New Music Ensemble The New York New Music Ensemble is a contemporary chamber music group. The group formed in 1975. Current members include: flutist Jayn Rosenfeld, clarinetist Jean Kopperud, violinist Linda Quan, cellist Chris Finckel, pianist Stephen Gosling and percussionist Daniel Druckman. , violinist Curtis Macomber, andsaxophonist Kenneth Tse. He has had performances in England, France,Germany, Austria, Italy, Holland, China, and Australia. Reviewers havepraised his work with statements such as, "... the listener'sear was bathed and caressed with the language of the soul." [TheSt. George (Utah) Spectrum]; "For a bravura bra��vu��ra?n.1. Musica. Brilliant technique or style in performance.b. A piece or passage that emphasizes a performer's virtuosity.2. A showy manner or display.adj.1. finale of nearlyunimaginable proportions, the recital ended with David Froom'sSonata." [Mark Swed, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner]; "All ofthe pieces had their particular merit, but the one that grabbed the earsand held on tenaciously was David Froom's ..." [MarilynTucker, The San Francisco Chronicle The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young.[2] The paper grew along with San Francisco to become the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the ]; and, "As a craftsman, Froomstood out from the pack." [Charles McCardell, American RecordGuide] Froom is married to pianist Eliza Garth. They have two lovely youngdaughters, Rosalie and Anna. MTNA MTNA Music Teachers National AssociationMTNA Middle Tennessee Nursery Association (McMinnville, Tennessee)offers its congratulations to two exceptional composers whoreceived "Honorable Mention" in the 2006 competition: JohnFitz Rogers, South Carolina South Carolina,state of the SE United States. It is bordered by North Carolina (N), the Atlantic Ocean (SE), and Georgia (SW).Facts and FiguresArea, 31,055 sq mi (80,432 sq km). Pop. (2000) 4,012,012, a 15. , for "Release" and Hu Xiao-ou,Missouri, for "Soul.". The distinguished judging panelconsisted of the 2005 MTNA/Shepherd Distinguished Composer 2005 MichaelDjupstrom (Philadelphia), composer/professor Young Mi Ha (New YorkUniversity New York University,mainly in New York City; coeducational; chartered 1831, opened 1832 as the Univ. of the City of New York, renamed 1896. It comprises 13 schools and colleges, maintaining 4 main centers (including the Medical Center) in the city, as well as the , New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of ), YC), and composition professor emeritus/filmcomposer George Burt (Sonoma, California). BONUS BYTE More information about David Froom may be found atwww.smcm.edu/users/dfroom/. Ann Rivers Witherspoon is an active composer in many genres. Shealso maintains a private studio, teaching composition, theory and piano.Witherspoon chairs the MTNA Composer Commissioning program.