Nansi Carroll - AMO: A Musical Offering

PHOTOS BY ELLIS AMBURN
OPPOSITE: Artistic co-directors Nansi Carroll and Stephen Coxe at the Jubilus Spring Gala
held in May at The Doris.
TOP: Bassoonist Javier Rodriguez with alto Jenna Nishida and VOICES Choir tenor Cedric
Douglas. A doctoral student at Florida State University, Rodriguez wrote his dissertation on
Nansi Carroll and has commissioned musical compositions by her.
RIGHT: Soprano Adrianna Rodgers (right) and mezzo-soprano Alyssa Rodgers (front) with
parents John and Ressa. Their Rossini “Cat Duet” stopped the show.
BOTTOM LEFT: Gainesville residents Dustin and Rebekah Rodgers.
writing music, Carroll revealed that
improvisation plays a crucial role in musical
creativity. When she was a child,
her uncle, Julius Carroll, an organist,
instructed her when he was doing his
master’s in music education.
“My father’s brother always said, ‘If
you get a child young enough, you can
indoctrinate them in music.’ I would see
him off and on at various times in my life
— it wasn’t concentrated. He introduced
me to improvising. It’s fun to improvise
at the piano.
“There was improvisation in the Baroque,”
she explained, referring to a Bran-
denburg Concerto in which the harpsichordist
improvises the entire second
movement, and, in the classical period, a
Mozart concerto in which “the cadenza
is improvised on the spot. Musicianship
develops through improvisation and using
intervals, composing creatively.”
She called improvisation “the big
deal of my life,” explaining that some
composers “work from a concept, a disciplined
plan from the beginning. With
me, I often fi nd — depending on the
piece — improvising in my life has been
my main creative conduit.”
Her composition, “Stabat Mater,”
which she described as “variations on the
spiritual ‘Were You There,’” was performed
to the choreography of Vic Rose.
Composers who have written settings
to this 13th-century Catholic hymn (“At
the cross her station keeping stood the
mournful mother weeping”) include Palestrina,
Pergolesi, Haydn, Rossini, Vivaldi,
Gounod, Schubert, Verdi, and Dvorak.
For her 40-minute version, Carroll
employed a 20th-century setting.
“It was written at the time of the Second
Iraq War,” she said, referring to the
2003-2011 confl ict over weapons of mass
destruction, of which the U.S.-led Iraq
Survey Group later found insuffi cient
evidence. The war cost the lives of 4,408
U.S. and 110,600 Iraqis, with a total cost
to the U.S. economy of $3 trillion.
“Nansi’s compositions are at once
beautiful, sophisticated, and moving,”
wrote University of Florida music
professor Arthur Jennings. “She creates
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