From the monthly archives:
This was one of the pieces premiered last Thursday (2/22/2007).
FOUR MARIAN SONGS (1999/2006)
Music by Roger Bourland, Words by William MacDuff
1. Santa Maria
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
2. Zdravo Marija
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
3. Lamentation
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
4. The Pilgrims’ Song
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Juliana Gondek, soprano
Judith Hansen, [...]
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Ralph,
I’ve been watching and listening to your recent scena and before Harmony and I go off to dinner, I need to point something out that will help it. Too much of the scene is the same dynamic. Give us a section that is breathtakingly quiet, and a section with a ear-blasting volume ol’ Berlioz would [...]
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Despite many friends saying to NOT go and watch BABEL, I went, trying not to be prejudiced against Gustavo Santaolalla, the guitarist, er, composer, who won the Best Original Score Oscar last year for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. You may remember my groaning about that choice last year. Gustavo’s extremely sparse oud playing was peppered throughout, just [...]
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Much of mankind throughout history has honored alleged communications from “beyond” whether that beyond be from God, Satan, long dead Saints, angels, or other creatures big and small. Although Christians don’t like to fess up to this, the Bible has a lot of channeled material in it. Anything out of the mouth of a prophet [...]
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Four Apart Songs (2005)
for voice and piano
by Roger Bourland
1. Endless night (Francisco X. Alarcon)
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
2. My Mind’s Eye Sighs (Roger Bourland)
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
3. It isn’t Christmas (William MacDuff)
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
4. Farewell (James Patrick Kelly)
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Juliana Gondek, soprano
Judith [...]
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I just watched NETWORK, a terrific film written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. In it, a washed up anchor man, Howard Beale(Peter Finch) finds new sky-rocketing ratings after he threatens to commit suicide on the air. He becomes increasingly honest, or mad, no one is quite sure. The writing is superb, one [...]
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Hey! Wanna bone up on your 1960s dance steps? Here’s a groovy video of the most famous trumpet music of the past 50 years, “Tijuana Taxi” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
Herb Alpert – Tijuana TaxiUploaded by mrdantefontana
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I’m just back from hearing FOUR MARIAN SONGS and FLIGHT INTO EGYPT premiered by Juliana Gondek and friends. I’m still very high from it. Juliana sang with great authority, expression, passion, and musicality. How did I get so lucky to have her fall in love with my songs!
The Marian songs were powerful as a set. [...]
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About the Composer Michael Kaulkin writes about music.
Alex Ross The ever effervescent music cricket of the New Yorker magazine.
Aworks Robert Gable offers bite-sized comments about contemporary Classical music.
Blognoggle Jerry Bowles’ labor of love; this RSS feed “Shadows the Top 100 Classical Music Blogs”
Bourland.com My brother Andy’s blog; he’s been blogging since the beginning. One of [...]
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Soprano, Juliana Gondek and pianist Judith Hansen, will premiere my new FOUR MARIAN SONGS, with lyrics by William MacDuff, culled from ROSARIUM, tonight, Thursday, Feb.22, 2007 at 8 pm in Schoenberg Auditorium, on the UCLA campus.
On the same concert, Daniel Cummings will conduct the unstaged premiere of FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, a 15 minute chamber opera [...]
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