OUP Women Composers Orchestral, Opera, Chamber, Instrumental and Choral Catalogue

Valerie Capers - Valerie

Valerie Capers - Valerie Capers - b. 1935 Dr. Valerie Capers was born in the Bronx and received her early schooling at the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School of Music, the first blind person to do so. For several years she served on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. She was also a member of the faculty in the Department of Music and Art at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY) where she introduced several jazz courses to the music curriculum. Choral Advent & Christmas It Came upon the Midnight Clear Tenor Solo and SATB unaccompanied Vocal score 9780193864573 Available from Banks Music Publishing Solo Instrumental Portraits in Jazz Piano solo Score 9780193385627 This selection of twelve pieces draws on a variety of jazz styles associated with famous artists including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. The pieces are simple yet delightful, and this volume presents a refreshing approach to exploring jazz while improving your piano technique. This volume is perfect for intermediate standard players (approximately Grades 4-5) of any age, and includes a CD with performances by the composer. 6

Rebecca Clarke - Rebecca Clarke - 1886 - 1979 The self-styled ‘viola player and composer’ Rebecca Clarke (b. Harrow, England, 1886; d. New York City, 1979) played violin until her composition teacher, Sir Charles Stanford, urged her to shift over to the viola because then she would be ‘right in the middle of the sound, and can tell how it’s all done.’ The viola became the basis of Clarke’s world-wide career as a soloist and as a partner in chamber music with many of the greatest artists of the early twentieth century, including Schnabel, Casals, Thibaud, Rubinstein, Grainger, Hess, Monteux, and Szell. Her mature songs – perhaps her finest body of work, running the gamut from Blakean simplicity to brutal tragedy to outright farce — are also widely performed and recorded. Her choral and vocal-ensemble music was virtually unknown until publication of her Ave Maria and Chorus from Shelley’s ‘Hellas’ , but has since been performed and recorded. Several of her shorter instrumental chamber pieces, especially Morpheus, Two Pieces for Viola (or Violin) and Cello, and Prelude, Allegro, and Pastorale, have been performed, recorded, and broadcast worldwide. Clarke’s compositional output was extensive (about 100 works, including juvenilia). Her Viola Sonata and Piano Trio are often played and recorded, and are now generally regarded as masterpieces. 7