Libby Larsen

Libby Larsen (b. 24 December 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is one of America’s most prolific and most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of more than 200 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral and choral scores. Her music has been praised for its dynamic, deeply inspired, and vigorous contemporary American spirit.

Libby Larsen has received many awards and accolades, including a 1994 Grammy as producer of the CD: The Art of Arlene Augér, an acclaimed recording that features Larsen’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. Her opera Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus was selected as one of the eight best classical music events of 1990 by USA Today.

The first woman to serve as a resident composer with a major orchestra, she has held residencies with the California Institute of the Arts, the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, the Philadelphia School of the Arts, the Cincinnati Conservatory, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, and the Colorado Symphony. Larsen’s many commissions and recordings are a testament to her fruitful collaborations with a long list of world-renowned artists, including The King’s Singers, Benita Valente, and Frederica von Stade, among others. Her works are widely recorded on such labels as Angel/EMI, Nonesuch, Decca, and Koch International.

In 1973, she co-founded (with Stephen Paulus) the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composers Forum, which has been an invaluable advocate for composers in a difficult, transitional time for American arts.
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Gábor Lehotka was born on July 20, 1938, in Vác, Hungary. He began to learn music as a pupil in primary school. Tibor Pikéthy, a composer and organist at the Vác Cathedral, was his first significant music tutor. In 1953, Lehotka enrolled at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest, where he studied organ with János Hammerschlag, Kálmán Halász and Ferenc Gergely and composition with Rezsõ Sugár. In 1958, Lehotka enrolled in the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy, where he studied organ with Sebestyén Pécsi and composition with Endre Szervánszky. He earned a degree in organ cum laude in 1963 and a degree in composition in 1966.

Lehotka appeared as organ soloist with the National Philharmonic Society in 1963. Since then, he has regularly given concerts in Hungary. Since 1965, he has also performed in other lands, having given concerts in every country in Europe. Lehotka has been most often invited to perform in Germany, France and the former Soviet Union. He has concertized in the Notre Dame and Saint Germain- Des Pres Churches in Paris. Lehotka often returns to these places thanks to the kind invitations of the Festival Estival.

His visits to the southern part of France had the most crucial impact on his life. There Lehotka first concertized in Grignan as part of the Avignon Festival, to which he was always invited during the past two decades. The times he has spent at the festival represent the peak experiences of his artistic life. Lehotka attributes this to the lovely landscapes and rich history of this small town, the beauty of
the church with its not-too-large but splendid nineteen register organ and the people he has met there with whom he has established relationships. Influenced by these visits, Lehotka began to compose music again in 1979 and has since presented many of his own organ works in Grignan.

In 1969 he became an organ instructor at the Béla Bartók Conservatory. Since 1975, Lehotka has been teaching at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy where he is a Professor of Organ. Since 1965, Lehotka has made nearly fifty recordings on the Hungaroton label.

Michael Levi (b. 1945) is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Graduate Studies in Music at the College of Saint Rose in Albany. He holds a B.A. from Fredonia State College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo. He has taught in the Williamsville and Depew school districts near Buffalo, New York. He has also been on the Music Education Faculty at SUNY Buffalo, and has served on the Artistic Faculty and Administrative Staff of the New York State Summer School of the Arts in Choral Studies. He credits Richard Sheil, Weston Noble, William Dawson and Alice Parker as his major influences.

Dr. Levi is a consultant to the College Board in their Advanced Placement and Academic Preparation for College programs and is co-editor of the Vertical Teams in the Arts publication. He has been an instructor at several AP Teacher Training Institutes throughout the United States.

Dr. Levi is active in the New York State School Music Association, having served as: Adjudicator, Festival Host, Editor of Mixed and Men’s Choral Lists for the NYSSMA Manual, Clinician and Zone Representative to the Executive Council for Western New York. In addition to NYSSMA, he is also a member of the Music Educators National Conference, American Choral Directors Association, International Association of Jazz Educators, New York State Choral Directors Guild and the American Association of University Professors.

He has been a guest conductor for many All-County and Area All-State festivals. In addition, his compositions and arrangements have been published by E. C. Schirmer Music Company, Alliance Music, Warner Brothers, Northfield Music, E. Henry David, BriLee Music and Lawson-Gould.

Austin C. Lovelace was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina in 1919. He received his A.B. from High Point College in 1939 and his M.S.M. and D.S.M. from the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1941 and 1950, respectively. He is Past President and a current Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

Dr. Lovelace is Minister of Music Emeritus at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado. He has worked at a number of Presbyterian and Methodist churches in Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska and North Carolina, and at three seminaries: Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Dr. Lovelace has also worked as a consultant and lecturer, and has appeared as a Director of Music for general conferences.

In 1954, he served as the organist for the Assembly of the World Council of Churches. More than eight-hundred of his compositions for church have been published. Dr. Lovelace is also well known as a writer, having produced books and many articles on church hymnody.

Gilda Lyons

Gilda Lyons is active both as composer and vocalist.  Her recent work, Bone Needles, for two voices and dancer (commissioned by Amy Pivar Dances), was premiered at Dance New Amsterdam, NYC, on 21, 22, and 23 April 2006. Her one-act opera for three voices and chamber ensemble, The Walled-Up Wife, is due to be recorded in fall of 2006. 

Other current projects as composer include Charms and Blessings, for voice and viola (14 May 2006 premiere, Roerich Museum, NYC); and Elements and Offertories, for piano trio (2006-07 season). She is the Artistic Director of The Phoenix Concerts series at St. Matthew & St. Timothy, NYC, and a featured composer in American Opera Projects’ 2005-06 Composers and the Voice Series.  Her Three Robes, for voice and piano, was presented at the 2005 New Music and Art Festival at Bowling Green State University. 

Ms. Lyons made her professional debut as composer and vocalist with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra in 1997, performing the world premiere of her orchestral song cycle Feis.  Current projects as vocalist include premiere performances of works by Hagen, Kimper, LeBaron, Oteri, Rorem and Zahab.  In fall of 2006 Ms. Lyons will appear as soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic in their semi-staged concert production of Daron Hagen’s Shining Brow.  

She received her Ph.D. in Music Composition from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Bard College. Ms. Lyons has studied composition with Anne LeBaron, Eric Moe, Daria Semegen, Joan Tower and Roger Zahab; conducting with Roger Zahab; and voice with Arthur Burrows, Barry Busse and Elaine Valby. 
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