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Southern Harmony (Duckworth)
''Southern Harmony'' is a minimalist composition by William Duckworth written in 1980 and 1981. It is scored for unaccompanied mixed chorus, and is an original work created through adaptation of shape-note songs from the 1854 compilation '' Southern Harmony and Musical Companion'' (first published 1835). ''Southern Harmony'' is divided into four books (or sections) that were premiered over the span of a decade. The complete work was premiered in February 1992 at Merkin Concert Hall in New York by the Gregg Smith Singers The Gregg Smith Singers is a mixed chorus from the United States, directed by Gregg Smith (August 21, 1931 – July 12, 2016). The group, which comprises 16 singers, was founded at an all-Japanese Methodist church in West Los Angeles, California in .... Movements The individual movements of ''Southern Harmony'' are: Book One # Consolation # Wondrous Love # Hebrew Children # Solemn Thought # Rock of Ages Book Two Book Three Book Four References * Monroe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minimalism
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt and Frank Stella. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary postminimal art practices, which extend or reflect on minimalism's original objectives. Minimalism in music often features repetition and gradual variation, such as the works of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Julius Eastman and John Adams. The term ''minimalist'' often colloquially refers to anything or anyone that is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has accordingly been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score," which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration (choosing the instruments of a large music ensemble such as an orchestra which will play the different parts of music, such as the melody, accompaniment, counte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Duckworth (composer)
William Duckworth (January 13, 1943 – September 13, 2012) was an American composer, author, educator, and Internet pioneer. He wrote more than 200 pieces of music and is credited with the composition of the first postminimal piece of music, '' The Time Curve Preludes'' (1977–78), for piano. Duckworth was a Professor of Music at Bucknell University. Together with Nora Farrell, his wife, he ran Monroe Street Music, the publisher of many Duckworth's pieces. Biography Duckworth was born in North Carolina in 1943. He obtained a bachelor's degree in music from East Carolina University, then master's and doctorates in music education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He studied composition under composer Ben Johnston and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the notation of composer John Cage. Duckworth received a 2002 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1977. Duckworth collabo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony, coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists, led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, rarely, as a synonym for ''alla breve''. Early history A cappella could be as old as humanity itself. Research suggests that singing and vocables may have been what early humans used to communicate before the invention of language. The earliest piece of sheet music is thought to have originated from times as early as 2000 B.C. while the earliest that has survived in its entirety is from the first century A.D.: a piece from Greece called the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures. The term ''choir'' is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the quire), whereas a ''chorus'' performs in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is not rigid. Choirs may sing without instruments, or accompanied by a piano, pipe organ, a small ensemble, or an orchestra. A choir can be a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices or instruments in a polychoral composition. In typical 18th century to 21st century oratorios and masses, 'choru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shape-note
Shape notes are a musical notation designed to facilitate congregational and social singing. The notation, introduced in late 18th century England, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the noteheads in written music to help singers find pitches within major and minor scales without the use of more complex information found in key signatures on the staff. Shape notes of various kinds have been used for over two centuries in a variety of music traditions, mostly sacred music but also secular, originating in New England, practiced primarily in the Southern United States for many years, and now experiencing a renaissance in other locations as well. Nomenclature Shape notes have also been called character notes and patent notes, respectfully, and buckwheat notes and dunce notes, pejoratively. Overview The idea behind shape notes is that the parts of a vocal work can be learned more quickly and easily if the music is printed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Harmony
The ''Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion'' is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker, first published in 1835. The book is notable for having originated or popularized several hymn tunes found in modern hymnals and shape note collections like ''The Sacred Harp''. The music and its notation The roots of ''Southern Harmony'' singing, like the Sacred Harp, are found in the American colonial era, when singing schools convened to provide instruction in choral singing, especially for use in church services. This practice remained popular with Baptists in the South long after it fell from use in other regions. In 1801, a book called ''The Easy Instructor'' by William Smith and William Little was published for the use of this movement; its distinguishing feature was the use of four separate shapes that indicated the notes according to the rules of solfege. A triangle indicated ''fa'', a circle ''sol'', a square ''la'' and a diamond, ''mi.'' To avoid pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Music Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Special Music School (P.S. 859), a New York City public school for musically gifted children. Merkin Hall hosts 70,000 concertgoers a year. Overview Merkin Hall opened in Kaufman Music Center's (then The Hebrew Art School's) Abraham Goodman House in 1978, and soon after distinguished itself as an important New York City venue, featuring innovative classical and new music programming (it is the recipient of three awards in Adventurous Programming by ASCAP/Chamber Music America). Located in the Lincoln Square neighborhood, it is near the Lincoln Center campus but is not affiliated with it. Merkin Hall hosts over 200 concerts a year, many of them Kaufman Music Center presentations. It has several long-running series, presenting established and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregg Smith Singers
The Gregg Smith Singers is a mixed chorus from the United States, directed by Gregg Smith (August 21, 1931 – July 12, 2016). The group, which comprises 16 singers, was founded at an all-Japanese Methodist church in West Los Angeles, California in 1955, while Smith was studying for his master's degree in music at the University of California, Los Angeles. The group moved to New York in 1970. The group's repertoire ranges from the colonial-era American compositions of William Billings to contemporary works by Morton Feldman as well as many works by Smith himself. They have also performed works by William Duckworth, Arnold Schoenberg, Elliott Carter, Charles Ives, Earle Brown, Edwin London, Blas Galindo, Jorge Córdoba, Harold Blumenfeld, Irving Fine, Morton Gould, William Schuman, Louise Talma, Arthur Sullivan, and Ned Rorem, as well as early music by composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schütz. They have also made a well received yuletide album entitled "Christmas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wondrous Love
"What Wondrous Love Is This" (often just referred to as "Wondrous Love") is a Christian folk hymn from the American South. Its text was first published in 1811, during the Second Great Awakening, and its melody derived from a popular English ballad (Roud number 5089). Today it is a widely known hymn included in hymnals of many Christian denominations. Origins The hymn's lyrics were first published in Lynchburg, Virginia in the 1811 camp meeting songbook ''A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use''. The lyrics may also have been printed, in a slightly different form, in the 1811 book ''Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected'' published in Lexington, Kentucky.Gloverp. 829 (It was included in the third edition of this text published in 1818, but all copies of the first edition have been lost.) In most early printings, the hymn's text was attributed to an anonymous author, though the 1848 hymnal ''The Hesperian Harp'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy Manna
Holy Manna is the hymn tune originally written for " Brethren, We Have Met Together", which is one of the oldest published American folk hymns. Holy Manna is a pentatonic melody in Ionian mode. It was originally published by William Moore in ''Columbian Harmony'', a four-note shape-note tunebook, in 1829, and is attributed to him. Like most shape-note songs from that century, it is usually written in three parts. The meter is 87.87D. Popularity In addition to being used in a significant number of early American hymnals, including ''Southern Harmony The ''Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion'' is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker, first published in 1835. The book is notable for having originated or popularized several hymn tunes found in modern hymnals and sha ...'' (#103) and '' Baptist Harmony'' (#1), Holy Manna appears in a large number of modern hymnals. It is also used as a common tune for other songs, especially "God, Who Stretched the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minimalistic Compositions
Minimalism is a movement in visual arts, music, and other media that began in post–World War II Western art. Minimalism may also refer to: *Minimalism (computing), a philosophy of programming and configuring computers *Minimalism (philosophy), a theory that truth does not provide useful information beyond the proposition or sentence *Minimalism (syntax), a theory of natural language syntax developed by Noam Chomsky in the 1990s *Minimalism (technical communication), a theory of task-oriented and user-centered instruction and documentation *Minimalism (visual arts), art movement to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts *Minimalist music, a form of art music that employs limited or minimal musical materials *Judicial minimalism, a philosophy in United States constitutional law *Biblical minimalism, a movement or trend in biblical scholarship holding that the Bible is not reliable evidence for histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
