Hilary Tann - Here, the Cliffs

Hilary

Hilary Tann From her childhood in the coal-mining valleys of South Wales, Hilary Tann developed the love of nature which has inspired all her music, whether written for performance in the United States (Adirondack Light, for narrator and orchestra, written for the Centennial of Adirondack State Park, 1992) or for her first home in Wales (the celebratory overture, With the Heather and Small Birds, commissioned by the 1994 Cardiff Festival). A deep interest in the music of Japan led to study of the ancient Japanese vertical bamboo flute (the shakuhachi) from 1985 to 1991. Among the works reflecting this special interest are the chamber work, Of Erthe and Air (1990), and the large orchestral work From Afar (premiered in October 1996 by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kirk Trevor). From Afar received its European premiere in 2000 by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and is scheduled for the opening concert of The International Festival of Women in Music Today at the Seoul Arts Center in Korea (KBS Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Apo Hsu,April 2003). Tann lives south of the Adirondacks in upstate New York where she chairs the Department of Performing Arts at Union College in Schenectady. She holds degrees in composition from the University of Wales at Cardiff and from Princeton University. From 1982 to 1995, she was active in the International League of Women Composers and served in a number of Executive Committee positions. Numerous organizations have supported her work, including the Welsh Arts Council, the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music USA. A number of her chamber works are available on the Capstone and N/S Consonance labels. Since 1989 her music has been published exclusively by Oxford University Press. Her connection with Wales continues in various choral commissions—The Moor for the Madog Center for Welsh Studies, Psalm 104 (Praise, my soul) for the North American Welsh Choir, and Wales, Our Land for the Green Mountain College Welsh Heritage Program. The influence of the Welsh landscape is also evident in many chamber works—The Cresset Stone (solo violin), and The Walls of Morlais Castle (oboe, viola, cello). In July 2001, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes premiered The Grey Tide and the Green, commissioned for the Last Night of the Welsh Proms. Recent years have brought a series of concerto commissions—for violin (Here,the Cliffs premiered in October 1997 by the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra with violinist Corine Brouwer Cook), for alto saxophone (In the First, Spinning Place premiered in March 2000 by the University of Arizona Symphony Orchestra with Debra Richtmeyer as soloist), and for cello (Anecdote, premiered in December 2000 by the Newark Symphony Orchestra, Newark, Delaware, with Romanian cellist Ovidiu Marinescu). In March 2001, Tann was guest composer-in-residence with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra in conjunction with a performance of her 1989 concert overture, The Open Field (In memoriam Tienanmen Square). (January 2003)

HILARY TANN Here, The Cliffs For Solo Violin and Orchestra Duration: 16 minutes Instrumentation Solo Violin Timpani 1 Piccolo Percussion 1 2 Flutes Suspended Cymbal (medium), Tambourine, Maracas, 2 Oboes Glass and Metal Wind Chimes Clarinet in B! Percussion 2 Clarinet in B!/E! Glockenspiel, Crotales (optional), Suspended Sizzle Cymbal 2 Bassoons Harp 4 Horns (F) Strings 2 Trumpets (C) 3 Trombones 1 Tuba Composer’s Note The first ideas for Here, The Cliffs were inspired by a striking rock formation near my home in South Wales. Craig Cerrig-gleisiad is an ancient glacial basin, replete with rugged, steep walls, scree slopes, and a delicate mossy area beneath the cliff face. It seemed to me that the lone violinist in front of the orchestra was not unlike a lone traveler standing before the massiveness of such a rock formation. As I worked, a stronger idea took shape: that of the way in which such ice-age cirques seem to possess the sky within the amphitheater of rocks. The image is sometimes one of brightness and fragility as sunlight is captured and reflected within the curve of the rock face; at other times, the image is one of mystery and great sadness as low, dense mists curl downwards over the uppermost rim and earth merges with sky. Here, The Cliffs is in one movement. The soloist enters beneath the high, bright sounds of the opening and leads the orchestra into a light fast vivace. The central adagio is developed from the falling mist idea. When the vivace returns it is transformed at its conclusion by the powerful re-emergence of fragments of the adagio. —H.T. Here, The Cliffs was commissioned by violinist Corine Cook and the North Carolina Symphony, the Winston-Salem Piedmont Triad Symphony, the Canton Symphony, the Western Piedmont Symphony, and the Salisbury Symphony orchestra as part of the national series of works from Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA with support from the Helen F. Whitaker Fund. Other funding includes an Emerging Artist Grant from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Arts Council. Premiered on 17 October 1997, Raleigh, North Carolina, by violinist Corine Cook with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gerhardt Zimmermann.