It was a back to back win for Texans at this year’s Jimmy Awards. These are the National High School Musical Theatre Awards that recognize the best high school-age musical theater talents in America. It was held in June on Broadway in New York.
This year, it was Damson Chola Jr. from Cleburne, Texas, matching his win with last year’s winner Langston Lee from Leander, Texas.
Stephen Lias always has music on his mind. He’s the Dean’s Circle Endowed Professor Of Composition at Stephen F Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. Lias is also an outdoor kind of guy. Over the years, he’s composed music for a variety of national parks either on commission or just because. Now he’s been named Washington State’s Mount Rainier National Park’s first-ever composer in residence. His composition will celebrate the 125th anniversary of the park but won’t premiere until 2026.
What a sad and joyful time it is for the friends of the late composer Matt Dibble. This English lad was only 40 when he died in 2021 from complications from a covid vaccine. He left behind 48 tracks of Preludes and Fugues that he kept secret until hours before his death.
His good friend Jon Hargreaves helped crowdfund the necessary funds to record the album with the pianist Matt Dibble loved the most. Freddie Kempf. There’s also a documentary about Matt Dibble.
It’s been a busy and awarding season for some young emerging Black American classical musicians. Pianist Clayton Stephenson and Violinist Njioma Chinyere Grievous were the recipients of The Avery Fisher Career Grant Award. Another, Tyler Taylor, won the Emerging Black Composers competition from the San Francisco Symphony, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
We also honor an early music musician, James Nicholson, whose career spanned more than 25 years.
The National Association of Negro Musicians Convention
Njioma Grevious – Photo credit Jiyang Chen
New York City can have quite an effect on you and so can Multiple Sclerosis. Grammy winning composer Jeff Beal (House of Cards) deals with both in his new album: The New York Etudes. These solo piano works are somewhat of a departure from his compositions for TV and Film and that’s the way he wanted it. Beal says The New York Etudes is like a quiet place to land and recharge after a long day or the last few years.
Imagine that you are a non-profit organization in need of an infusion of music or a performance of a different type in your program. The Texas Commission on the Arts has come to the rescue. They’ve released their Texas Touring Roster for the next two years. It means if you hire the performers on the list to perform, in Texas, the TCA will help you pay for it.
The Artistic Director of Montopolis, Justin Sherburn, here with his wife Sara, a cellist, says they have benefitted from this program for several years.
So, your child is leaving home for a summer of music, travel, learning and fun?
In the case of Noah Semsar, it’s to play with Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America.
Semsar, who plays the trumpet, is a graduate of Atkins High School, and is the only Austin resident among 12 Texans chosen to be in the orchestra. He’ll join about 100 others from all over the country. He says this has cemented his choice, for now, to be a professional musician especially since he’s headed to music school in the fall.
Many classical artists are now releasing some of the works they composed during the pandemic. Composer Richard Danielpour is one of them. He’s released a new album: Songs in Three Languages, sung by Soprano Hila Plitmann. One section of the album pays tribute to Danielpour’s Father who wrote love poems to his wife. Then there’s the opera he composed called The Grand Hotel Tartarus.
There’s no place like home. A familiar line from a familiar movie and so very true. The Miro Quartet, The University of Texas String Quartet In Residence with an international reputation and a GRAMMY nomination, honed in on the theme with their latest album Home. They illustrated the essence of Home with a video of their performance of Over The Rainbow.
Daniel Ching, one of the founding members of the group says Home is a love letter to and appreciation of all the things they call home.
There’s a program coming up live and online in New York that is all about babies and music. It’s from Carnegie Hall’s The Lullaby Project. This is a concert of many of the songs composed by new parents with the help of professional musicians. Some of the performers are opera singers who sang some of the compositions written by the parents. Austin Classical Guitar was involved in this program, helping local parents express their emotions about their very young children.
Tiffany Ortiz, the Director of Early Childhood Programs at Carnegie Hall is inviting others to develop their own Lullaby Projects.