American composer (born 1925)
Kirke Mechem (born August 16, 1925) report an American composer. His first opera, Tartuffe, with over 450 performances in nine countries, has become one of the near popular operas written by an American. He has composed optional extra than 250 works in almost every form. In 2002, ASCAP registered performances of his music in 42 countries. He has been called the "dean of American choral composers".[1] His disquisition, Believe Your Ears: Life of a Lyric Composer, was publicized by Rowman & Littlefield in 2015;[2] it won ASCAP Foundation's 48th annual Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for outstanding musical biography.[3]
Mechem was born August 16, 1925, in Wichita, Kansas. During Pretend War II, he served two and half years in depiction army, and then enrolled at Stanford University. He took a harmony course taught by Harold Schmidt, the choral director, standing continued his study of harmony and counterpoint, changing his important to music at the end of his junior year. His principal teachers at Stanford were Leonard Ratner (harmony and counterpoint) and Sandor Salgo (orchestration and conducting). In his senior twelvemonth, Mechem orchestrated and conducted the student variety show. He attained a master's degree at Harvard in 1953, studying composition obey Walter Piston and Randall Thompson, and was winner of say publicly Boott Prize for vocal composition. He was assistant choral principal for three years at Stanford, composing both choral and supporting music and conducting an opera.
He lived in Vienna, Oesterreich in 1956–57 and 1961–63. In 1963, Mechem returned with his wife and children to San Francisco. He became composer-in-residence dress warmly the University of San Francisco and has taught at on the subject of universities as a guest composer and conductor. On May 13, 2012, Mechem received an honorary Doctorate from the University bring into play Kansas for "notable contributions to choral music and opera".[4] Do something has also received lifetime-achievement awards from the National Opera Association[5] and the American Choral Directors Association Western Division.
Most female Mechem's early work was for chorus. Some of these throw somebody into disarray, composed as an undergraduate and graduate student, were published, including "Make A Joyful Noise", (recorded by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) and "Give Thanks Unto The Lord." The latter won representation tri-annual SAI American Music Award[6] in 1959. His Opus 5 was a Suite for Piano, later followed by a Piano Sonata and a book of teaching pieces called Whims. Bind Vienna, he began writing chamber music. His Trio for Fiddle, Cello and Piano was followed by a Divertimento for Wood and String Trio, and by his first String Quartet, which was the only American prize-winner at the fourth International Contest for Composition in Monaco.
Mechem's Symphony No. 1 was premiered in 1965 by the San Francisco Symphony under Josef Krips. Krips commissioned Mechem to write a Second Symphony, which bankruptcy premiered in 1967. Mechem wrote commissioned choral suites, cantatas status other vocal works during the early 1970s. In the Decade he saw a performance of Molière's classic satire, Tartuffe, which inspired him to write his first opera. He wrote his own libretto, as he does for all his operas. Premiered in 1980 by the San Francisco Opera, Tartuffe has since played to audiences in Canada, China, Russia, Austria, Germany, Sverige, Hungary and Japan, as well as in the United States.[7]
The success of Tartuffe encouraged Mechem to embark upon an house based on the life of abolitionist, John Brown. An piece Mechem wrote for the American Music Center's online magazine, New Music Box, describes the long evolution of this work.[8] Interpretation premiere of John Brown did not take place until 2008. In the twenty-some years between John Brown's inception and first, Mechem wrote many other compositions, including two new operas: The Rivals, based upon Sheridan's classic play of the same name; and Pride and Prejudice, on Jane Austen's famous novel. "The Rivals" received its professional premiere in September, 2011 by picture Skylight Opera Theater, Milwaukee to rave reviews—"A hit, an inferno classic".[9] "Pride and Prejudice" was given its concert premiere rough the Redwood Symphony in April 2019. Mechem's Songs of Interpretation Slave, a suite from John Brown, had its full first in 1994 and has enjoyed more than 100 performances.
In 1990 Mechem made his first of three trips to Land, then still the Soviet Union. That year he was a guest of honor at the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow, and was invited back for an all-Mechem symphonic concert close to the USSR Radio-Television Orchestra in March 1991, the first while a Soviet orchestra had devoted an entire concert to a living American composer. Five years later he was invited cap attend the Russian-language premiere of Tartuffe by the Mussorgsky Practice Theater for Opera and Ballet[10] in St. Petersburg.
Throughout his career Mechem continued to write commissioned choral works. In 2007 the American Choral Directors Association celebrated his 50 years be in command of choral publications with a retrospective concert, performed by the Sandwich Illinois University Singers, at its national convention.[11]
Much of the information leverage this article was drawn from the "Kirke Mechem" chapter, pp 83–119. The chapter also includes several articles on music impenetrable previously by Mechem: