Gilda Lyons
Gilda Lyons(born January 11, 1975,Rhinebeck,New York) is an Americancomposer,vocalist,andvisual artistwho writes music that "combines elements of renaissance, neo-baroque, spectral, agitprop Music Theater, and extended vocalism".[1]
Education and early career
[edit]Lyons attendedBard College,where she studied withJoan TowerandDaron Hagen,and in 1997 received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Composition, Vocal Performance, and Visual Arts.
She then attended theUniversity of Pittsburgh,where she studied withEric MoeandAnne LeBaron,and received a Master of Arts degree in Music Composition and Theory in 2001.
She studied withDaria Semegenand Peter Winkler at theState University of New York at Stony Brook,receiving a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2005.
Lyons also studied voice, first at Bard with Arthur Burrows, then privately withheldentenorBarry Busse.
American Opera Projectsin New York City chose her doctoral dissertation, "The Walled Up Wife" (opera, libretto and music by Lyons, 2005), for development and concert premiere.[2]Her critically successful 2015 opera,A New Kind of Fallout,commissioned and premiered by theOpera Theater of Pittsburghwith a libretto byTammy Ryan,addressed "in achingly human terms... an artful perspective on an important matter [the dangers of pesticides]".[3]Inspired byRachel Carson's "Silent Spring,"Lyons' music moves the opera well, fluently traversing distinctively characterized styles. She creates bright and open lines to start the opera and later when Alice and Jack exemplify a good marriage, and somewhat denser and more rhythmically agitated when there is conflict. Lyons' command of varied musical textures is masterful.[4]
Performer, impresario, educator
[edit]She made her professional debut as both vocal soloist and composer in her own orchestralsong cycle"Feis" (poetry ofNuala Ní Dhomhnaill,1997) with theAmerican Symphony Orchestra,Leon Botsteinconducting.[5]She made her recording debut as the Maid inDaron Hagen's operaShining Brow(Naxos, 2006) with theBuffalo Philharmonic,conducted byJoAnn Falletta.Of her performance, David Shengold, in Opera, UK, wrote, "Gilda Lyon’s clear soprano compels admiration."[6]
Lyons founded the Phoenix Concerts, a New York City-based contemporary music performing and presenting organization, in 2005 and serves as its Artistic and Executive Director.The New Yorkerdescribes it as "New York’s plucky Upper West Side new-music series".[7]As of October 2014, Lyons had programmed music by over 160 composers on over fifty concerts.[8]She has commissioned and performed premières of works by numerous living composers, includingKathryn Alexander,Juhi Bansal, Hayes Biggs,Robert Carl,Chen S’iang, Jesse D’Aiello, Stephen Dembski, Jed Distler, Kaeza Fearn,Daniel Felsenfeld,Daniel Gilliam, Daron Hagen, Wang Jie, Paula Kimper, Wendy Wan'ki Lee, Katarina Leyman, Eli Marshall,Jorge Martin,Daphna Mor,Frank Oteri,Glen Roven,David Rakowski, Jessica Rudman, She Ye,Faye-Ellen Silverman,Daniel Sonenberg,Dennis Tobenski, Craig Urquhart, Barbara White, Beth Wiemann, Peter Winkler,Randall Woolf,and Zhou Xu.
Lyons served as Assistant Executive Director of theNew York New Music Ensemble(2006–2008) and Executive Director of theLotte Lehmann Foundation(2008–2011). She has served as Adjunct Assistant Professor atBronx Community College(2006–2012), as a Special Projects Instructor forEmpire State College(2006–2008), and as a member of the composition faculty of the Seasons Music Festival Academy (2009–2012),[9]
Since 2013, she has served as a Senior Artist Teacher with her own composition studio on the faculty ofThe Hartt School.In 2014, she joined the composition faculty of theWintergreen Summer Music Festival and Academy.
Compositions
[edit]Lyons has received commissions from, among others, theASCAPFoundation / Charles Kingsford Fund, American Opera Projects, Amy Pivar Dances, the Beijing New Music Ensemble, ComposersCollaborative Inc., Fort Greene Park Conservancy, Paul Sperry, Two Sides Sounding, Adrienne Dandrich, Thomas Bagwell, the Finisterra Trio, Entelechron Trio, Kyo-Shin-An Arts, the 5 Borough Music Festival, the AIDS Quilt Songbook at Twenty, Mirror Visions, IonSound, Sweet Plantain String Quartet, and The Walt Whitman Project.
Lyons often turns to unusual sources for texts, and combines ritualistic chant and expanded vocal techniques. Tom Strini in theMilwaukee Journal Sentineldescribed "Nahuatl Hymn to the Earth Mother" for treble choir as “hair-raising, yet elegant, [with] slides, dips, yips and yelps amid ceremonial intensity."[10](Clarion CLCD-936) The wide range of her textual sources embraces poetry by grade school children in the Bronx "Songs from the F Train", (commissioned by American Opera Projects, and published by Schott, 2010),[11]the Anne Sexton-inspired solo voice cycle "A Small Handful" (EC Schirmer, 2006),[12]and even "transforms acronyms, route numbers and letters and a listing of transit-authority service changes into a comic soprano and mezzo-soprano duet [called] rapid transit".[13]
She also incorporates visual imagery, as in the multi-media work "riverrun", (images by Holen Sabrina Kahn) and combines voice with pre-recorded sound, as in "walk, run, fly", which she premiered atThe Flea Theaterin New York City in 2012,[14]and "Coney Run", in which she integrates piano, voices, andmusic concrete.
Schott Music,EC Schirmer, and Burning Sled Music publish her music. Recordings are available on the GPR and Clarion labels.
References
[edit]- ^Gilda Lyons websiteArchivedOctober 6, 2014, at theWayback Machine.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
- ^American Opera Projects website.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
- ^O'Driscoll, Bill (2015)."A New Kind of Fallout at Opera Theater: A new opera inspired by the work of Rachel Carson is frequently powerful".Pittsburgh City Paper.No. July 22, 2015.
- ^Kanny, Mark (2015)."Review: Compelling new opera, 'Fallout,' revisits 1960s, dangers of pesticides".Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.No. July 15, 2019.
- ^ECS Publishing Website Lyons Biography.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
- ^Shengold, David (2009). "Shining Brow Review".Opera, UK.
- ^Platt, Russell (2011). "Concert Listings".The New Yorker.
- ^Phoenix Concerts Concerts Webpage.ArchivedOctober 6, 2014, at theWayback Machine.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
- ^Seasons Music Festival Composers Seminar WebpageArchivedOctober 6, 2014, at theWayback Machine.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
- ^Strini, Tom (February 18, 2008). "Milwaukee Choral Artists Shine".Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- ^Schott Website Product Page.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
- ^ECS Publishing Product PageArchivedOctober 6, 2014, at theWayback Machine.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
- ^Kozinn, Allan(January 15, 2012)."A Score of Ways to Serenade a City".The New York Times.
- ^The Flea Theater Blog.Retrieved October 5, 2014.
External links
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| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
- 1975 births
- 21st-century American academics
- 21st-century American composers
- 21st-century American women opera singers
- 21st-century American women educators
- 21st-century American educators
- 21st-century American women composers
- American founders
- American opera composers
- American operatic sopranos
- Bard College alumni
- Bronx Community College faculty
- Composers from New York City
- Empire State University faculty
- Living people
- Musicians from Hartford, Connecticut
- Organization founders
- People from Rhinebeck, New York
- Singers from Connecticut
- Singers from New York City
- Stony Brook University alumni
- University of Hartford Hartt School faculty
- University of Pittsburgh alumni
- Women founders
- American women opera composers
- 21st-century American women academics