MUSES NINE — Becky Billock
BECKYBILLOCK.ORG (58:02)
THOME Spiral Journey. JOYCE Medium Piano. DIEMER Toccata for Piano.
BAUER Quietly. Allegretto Grasioso. Very Fast. Vigoroso. With Deep
Feeling. Exuberantly, Passionately. ZWILICH Lament. BEACH Dreaming.
Honeysuckle. Scottish Legend. From Blackbird Hills. LARSEN Mephisto
Rag. BONDS Troubled Water.
This disc contains music by women composers who lived between 1873 and the
present. I found it to be an unforgettable listening experience. All of the music is
beautifully played by Becky Billock who holds degrees from Walla Walla College, the
University of Redlands, and the University of Washington, where she studied
respectively with Leonard Richter, Louanne Long, and Craig Sheppard. Currently,
Billock lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two daughters. She performs
regularly, often promoting the works of women composers, and she teaches privately.
Composer Diane Thome studied with Roy Harris, Darius Milhaud and Milton Babbitt.
She was the first woman to receive a doctorate in music from Princeton University. A
teacher of note as well as the composer of a wide variety of works, she is the former chair
of the composition program at the University of Washington School of Music.
Stylistically, her music is solidly in the second half of the twentieth century and her
Spiral Journey is no exception. The composer of Medium Piano, the incredibly
promising Molly Joyce, is a twenty year old Julliard student as of this writing. In 2010
she received the ASCAP Morton Gould Award. The piece on this disc is one of three
preludes: Medium Piano, Fast Piano and Slow Piano, commissioned for the 2011 San
Angelo Texas Piano Festival. Having studied with Richard Danielpour and Christopher
Rouse, she writes in an emotionally appealing twenty-first century style. We can hope to
hear more great music from her for many years to come. Having received her doctorate
from the Eastman School of Music in 1960, Emma Lou Diemer taught theory and
composition at the University of Maryland and the University of California. Her toccata
makes use of the piano's percussive possibilities but not without a few bits of melody to
sweeten the mix. On this CD, there are six pieces by Marion Eugénie Bauer (1882-1955)
who was a American composer, teacher, writer, and music critic. Thus, she played an
active role in shaping American musical identity in the early half of the twentieth
century. She taught music history and composition at New York University from 1926 to
1951. Her first piece, Quietly, is an impressionistic delight for the left hand alone. The
others, Allegretto Grazioso, Very Fast, Vigoroso, With Deep Feeling, and Exuberantly,
Passionately are artful music played with intensity by Billock so as to evoke deep
feelings on the part of the listeners. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was the first female composer
to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Elliott Carter, and Roger Sessions were among her
teachers and her early works are distinguished by an exploration of atonality. However,
in the 1980s she converted to a post-modernist, neo-romantic style, a shift that has
helped to make her music quite popular. You might need a handkerchief when you listen
to her Lament. It goes directly to your emotions. Libby Larsen is a modern composer
whose music is known for its liberated tonality and its mixture of styles and colors. Her
Mephisto Rag is a gleeful approach to Liszt's original waltzes. Margaret Bond (1913-
1972) attended Northwestern University where she studied with Emily Boettiche Bogue,
Arnie Oldburg and Dean Carl Beecher and received a master's degree. In 1933 she
became the first African American soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Troubled Water is her rousing fantasy on the spiritual Wade in the Water. There are
several other recordings of this work, including excellent versions by William Chapman
Nyho on MSR Classics and Maria Corley on Albany Records. The sound on the Muses
Nine CD is pleasing and unobtrusive. There is no indication with the disc as to where it
was recorded, but it is well done in any case. Maria Nockin
BECKYBILLOCK.ORG (58:02)
THOME Spiral Journey. JOYCE Medium Piano. DIEMER Toccata for Piano.
BAUER Quietly. Allegretto Grasioso. Very Fast. Vigoroso. With Deep
Feeling. Exuberantly, Passionately. ZWILICH Lament. BEACH Dreaming.
Honeysuckle. Scottish Legend. From Blackbird Hills. LARSEN Mephisto
Rag. BONDS Troubled Water.
This disc contains music by women composers who lived between 1873 and the
present. I found it to be an unforgettable listening experience. All of the music is
beautifully played by Becky Billock who holds degrees from Walla Walla College, the
University of Redlands, and the University of Washington, where she studied
respectively with Leonard Richter, Louanne Long, and Craig Sheppard. Currently,
Billock lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two daughters. She performs
regularly, often promoting the works of women composers, and she teaches privately.
Composer Diane Thome studied with Roy Harris, Darius Milhaud and Milton Babbitt.
She was the first woman to receive a doctorate in music from Princeton University. A
teacher of note as well as the composer of a wide variety of works, she is the former chair
of the composition program at the University of Washington School of Music.
Stylistically, her music is solidly in the second half of the twentieth century and her
Spiral Journey is no exception. The composer of Medium Piano, the incredibly
promising Molly Joyce, is a twenty year old Julliard student as of this writing. In 2010
she received the ASCAP Morton Gould Award. The piece on this disc is one of three
preludes: Medium Piano, Fast Piano and Slow Piano, commissioned for the 2011 San
Angelo Texas Piano Festival. Having studied with Richard Danielpour and Christopher
Rouse, she writes in an emotionally appealing twenty-first century style. We can hope to
hear more great music from her for many years to come. Having received her doctorate
from the Eastman School of Music in 1960, Emma Lou Diemer taught theory and
composition at the University of Maryland and the University of California. Her toccata
makes use of the piano's percussive possibilities but not without a few bits of melody to
sweeten the mix. On this CD, there are six pieces by Marion Eugénie Bauer (1882-1955)
who was a American composer, teacher, writer, and music critic. Thus, she played an
active role in shaping American musical identity in the early half of the twentieth
century. She taught music history and composition at New York University from 1926 to
1951. Her first piece, Quietly, is an impressionistic delight for the left hand alone. The
others, Allegretto Grazioso, Very Fast, Vigoroso, With Deep Feeling, and Exuberantly,
Passionately are artful music played with intensity by Billock so as to evoke deep
feelings on the part of the listeners. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was the first female composer
to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Elliott Carter, and Roger Sessions were among her
teachers and her early works are distinguished by an exploration of atonality. However,
in the 1980s she converted to a post-modernist, neo-romantic style, a shift that has
helped to make her music quite popular. You might need a handkerchief when you listen
to her Lament. It goes directly to your emotions. Libby Larsen is a modern composer
whose music is known for its liberated tonality and its mixture of styles and colors. Her
Mephisto Rag is a gleeful approach to Liszt's original waltzes. Margaret Bond (1913-
1972) attended Northwestern University where she studied with Emily Boettiche Bogue,
Arnie Oldburg and Dean Carl Beecher and received a master's degree. In 1933 she
became the first African American soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Troubled Water is her rousing fantasy on the spiritual Wade in the Water. There are
several other recordings of this work, including excellent versions by William Chapman
Nyho on MSR Classics and Maria Corley on Albany Records. The sound on the Muses
Nine CD is pleasing and unobtrusive. There is no indication with the disc as to where it
was recorded, but it is well done in any case. Maria Nockin