1999-2007 - Music-USA.org

Daniel Adams (b. 1956, Miami, FL) is a Professor of Music at Texas Southern University in
Houston. He has previously held positions at the University of Miami and Miami-Dade Community
College. Adams holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (1985) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, a Master of Music from the University of Miami (1981) and a Bachelor of Music from
Louisiana State University (1978). Adams currently serves as a member of the Percussive Arts Society
Composition Committee, the Board of Directors of the National Association of Composers, USA
(NACUSA), and as treasurer of the Texas Chapter of NACUSA.
Adams is the composer of numerous published musical compositions and the author of several
articles and reviews on various topics related to Twentieth Century percussion music, musical
pedagogy, and the music of Texas. His music has been performed throughout the United States, and in
Spain, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Turkey, Argentina, and South Korea. In 1994 he appeared as an
invited guest conductor for the premiere of a commissioned work at the Teatro Nan ional in San Jose,
Costa Rica. HoneyRock Publishing released his book, The Solo Snare Drum: A Critical Analysis of
Contempora y Compositional Techniques in March of 2000.
He has received grants and awards from ASCAP, the Percussive Arts Society, the American
Symphony Orchestra League, Meet the Composer, the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, the Minnesota
Composers Forum, the Maryland Clarinet Composition Contest, and the Music Teachers National
Association. His music is recorded on Capstone Records and Summit Records.
Concerning his solo flute composition Ambivalence Recalled, Mr. Adams writes:
"The term ambivalence, coined in 1911 by psychologist Eugen Bleuler, is the coexistence of two
opposing drives, desires, feelings, or emotions. It may manifest itself in either the conscious or
unconscious parts of the mind. In Freudian psychoanalysis, ambivalence is described as "feelings of love
and hate toward the same person". The concept of ambivalence is represented in this solo by the
interplay of two distinct motives, each derived from separate matrices and varying in rhythmic
character. In the beginning section, one motive is mostly legato and lyrical and the other is more strident
and complex. Both are transformed through meter changes, shifting rhythmic subdivisions, and changes
of tempo and register. As a result, they become nearly indistinguishable, neither one prevailing over the
other. In several passages repeated notes are played with subtle variations of timbre through changes of
fingering. The coda is a variant of the introductory passage, played as harmonics" .
A native of Moline, Illinois Marilyn J. Ziffrin (b. 1926) was educated at the University of
Wisconsin in Madison and at Columbia University in New York City. Her composition mentors
included Alexander Tcherepnin and Karl Ahrendt. She has received commissions from the New
Hampshire Music Festival, the American Guild of Organists, the Hope College Concert Choir and the
Concord Chorale, to name but a few.
Ms. Ziffrin has been honored with awards from ASCAP and the, New Hampshire Council on the
Arts. Most notably, she received the 1972 Delius Composition Award for her song cycle Haiku. Her
music may be heard on the Crystal, Capra, CRS, Opus One, and MMC record labels. North/South
Recordings recently released an album devoted entirely to her vocal music featuring mezzo-soprano
D'Anna Fortunato (N/S R 1041). Also active as a writer, Ziffrin is the author of a much-acclaimed
biography of the distinguished American composer Carl Ruggles.
Rhapsody for Guitar was written in 1958 shortly after Ms. Ziffrin completed her composition
studies with Alexander Tcherepnin. But is was not until February 12,1979 that it was given its premiere
performance by David Leisner at New England College in Henniker, NH. Published by Editions
Orphke, the work has been widely performed throughout the US and abroad. The single-movement
composition employs a straight-forward language built around the timbric and harmonic possibilities
inherent in ihe instrument.
Daniel Kessner kindly provided the following statement concerning his work Genera for bass
flute and bass clarinet:
I
.