Rhian Samuel: Women Make Music
The fifteen minute work by Rhian Samuel will consist of small movements which can be performed both individually and as a complete set. One movement will have an optional interaction element, which will be used in the outreach and workshops the Mavron Quartet will undertake for various sponsors. A single movement may also be used as an encore piece in future recitals where the work is not performed complete. This commissioned work will have multiple uses, in recital programming and in outreach and interactive workshops. It will mark the Mavron Quartet’s 10th anniversary and will be premiered on 29th May 2012 in St David’s Hall, Cardiff.
More performance dates:
29th May 2012- St. David’s Hall Cardiff, 1pm
26th July 2012- The Gate, 7.30pm
19th October 2012 – Theatr Stiwt, Wrexham
21st October 2012 – Galeri, Caernarfon
26th October 2012 – Canolfan Ucheldre, Holyhead
10th February 2013 – The Great Hall, Aberystwyth, 3pm
3rd May 2013 – Norwegian Church, Cardiff
About Rhian Samuel
Rhian Samuel writes orchestral, chamber, vocal and choral music and has worked with many of today’s foremost artists. To date approximately 100 of her works have been published. In the USA, she was joint winner of the ASCAP-Rudolph Nissim Award, 1983, for her choral-orchestral work, La belle dame sans merci. In the UK, she won first prize at the Greenwich Festival (1979) and has received subsequent accolades including the Glyndwr Medal for services to the Arts in Wales. Her first large orchestral work was Elegy-Symphony (St Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, 1981). Her Tirluniau/Landscapes (2000) was premiered at the BBC Millenium Proms, Albert Hall, by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Tadaaki Otaka, conductor.
Rhian Samuel acknowledges many influences on her music, most notably that of performers themselves, but also of her rich Welsh literary and musical heritage and her long sojourn in the USA. She identifies with her female colleagues in a profession dominated by males, seeing her position, somewhat outside the male tradition, as an exciting one with many challenges and opportunities, not one, as in former times for many women composers, that must be denied.