by Daniel Hathaway.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Two deaths and two births to take note of on August 17. We’ll mention the former in passing — French-born harp guru Carlos Salzedo in Waterville, ME, and lyricist Ira Gershwin in Beverly Hills, CA — and dedicate two performances to their memory.
Click here to watch the Salzedo Harp Duo — Nancy Lendrim and Jody Guinn, principal harpists of the Toledo and Akron Symphonies, respectively — play Salzedo’s “Steel” from Suite Pentacle on a virtual Brownbag Concert at Cleveland’s Trinity Cathedral.
And watch Who Could Ask for Anything More? A Celebration of Ira Gershwin at London’s Royal Albert Hall in November, 1996, marking the centenary of his birth.
On this date in 1828, church musician and hymn composer George William Warren was born in Albany, New York. While serving from 1870 to 1900 at St. Thomas Episcopal Church — the third building on Fifth Avenue that was destroyed by fire in 1905 — he wrote the music for Daniel C. Roberts’ hymn “God of our Fathers” for the centenary of the U.S. Constitution. It’s been suggested as a candidate to replace the current national anthem. Click here to hear the Choir of St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York sing it in procession at the beginning of an Independence Day service in 2011. Former Clevelander William Trafka is at the organ.
Exactly one hundred years later, American composer Thomas Jefferson (T.J.) Anderson was born in Coatesville, PA. His catalogue of works includes operas, symphonies, chamber music and music for wind ensemble, some of them commissioned by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Cantata Singers and Ensemble.
Anderson taught at a number of colleges and universities, most notably at Tufts from 1972 to 1990, and served for three seasons as composer in residence for the Atlanta Symphony, when he orchestrated Scott Joplin’s 2011 opera Treemonisha for its first full stage production in 1972.
Click here to watch a performance of Anderson’s 1988 Chamber Concerto (Remembrances) as performed by Timothy Weiss and the Oberlin Conservatory Contemporary Music Ensemble, and here to hear members of the Atlanta Symphony perform his Variations on a Theme by M.B. Tolson with mezzo-soprano Jan De Gaetani, led by Arthur Weisberg.
