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
2. Zdravo Marija
3. Lamentation
4. The Pilgrims’ Song
Juliana Gondek, soprano
Judith Hansen, piano
Notes:
These songs were taken from the two-hour ROSARIUM, A DRAMA FOR CHORUS and ORCHESTRA (1999). The work explores two Marian apparitions, the first in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Four Apart Songs (2005)
for voice and piano
by Roger Bourland
1. Endless night (Francisco X. Alarcon)
2. My Mind’s Eye Sighs (Roger Bourland)
3. It isn’t Christmas (William MacDuff)
4. Farewell (James Patrick Kelly)
Juliana Gondek, soprano
Judith Hansen, piano
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 […]
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
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Here is a recording of e. e. cummings reading his own “anyone lived in a howtown.”
If you find that you’d rather dance, hear the poem set to music by Kim Delmhorst. I think it would be a perfect 2-step.
[Merci un violon, un jambon]
One of my composition students claimed today that she “hated” C sharp major. Puzzled, I froze for a moment thinking that perhaps the vibration of one of the octaves rattled her fillings or vibrated her skull in an annoying way. I pointed out that 7 sharps could be really bothersome and that D flat, the […]
Dear Ralph,*
I have gone through the material that you sent me. I have to say I don’t understand why Hector thinks you are a composer. You seem like mostly a songwriter. I wrote some songs in my day, some good ones, and some really bad ones. You can find them in the collection called “144 […]
My old buddy from Harvard, Peter Sellars, was invited by our Dean to visit our music task force. The committee’s task is to dream up new ways of teaching core offerings in music that can be applicable to young performers, historians, composers, and world music students. We have been encouraged to think “blue sky.” Peter […]
[Email sent to M. Rufus Wainwright from M. Claude Debussy; 19 February 2007]
Mon cher,
Do not listen to that macho cowboy Ives about changing your name. He is an idiot.
I was assigned to oversee your work on your new opera, but told not to interfere. I have been in correspondence with Ms. Brown about my insistence […]
[Charles Ives has been granted permission from Rosemary Brown to correspond with Rufus Wainwright and Roger Bourland via instant messaging software. This is a transcript of their correspondence from this morning.]
CI: Hello, hello. Mayday. Do you read me?
RW: Yeah, hi. I’m here. Hello Mr Ives.
CI: Call me Charlie.
RW: You can call […]
Rosemary Brown at the piano; Franz Liszt looks on.
I was recently contacted by the famous, or infamous British weekend pianist and spiritualist, Rosemary Brown (1916-2001). Rosemary spent much of her life channeling new compositions by a variety of deceased composers including Liszt, Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy, Chopin, Grieg, and famous music writer, Sir Donald Tovey. (For […]
Tomorrow Is Such A Long Time
If today was not an endless highway
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time
then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all
Ah but only if my own true love is waitin’
Yes and if I could hear her heart a softly poundin’
only if she were lying […]
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