{"id":5886,"date":"2011-04-06T15:36:34","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T20:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=5886"},"modified":"2011-04-06T15:36:34","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T20:36:34","slug":"apsu-remembers-legacy-and-friendship-of-late-composer-lee-hoiby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2011\/04\/06\/apsu-remembers-legacy-and-friendship-of-late-composer-lee-hoiby\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU Remembers Legacy and Friendship of Late Composer Lee Hoiby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Clarksville, TN<\/strong> – In his later years, the renowned American composer Lee Hoiby was a quiet, slender gentleman with wavy gray hair and intelligent, often amused eyes. His appearance suited his style of music, which was reminiscent of the pleasing tunes of the early Romantic era and of his idol, Franz Schubert.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis music is beautiful,\u201d Gregory Wolynec, Austin Peay State University associate professor of music, said. \u201cWhen we think of contemporary music, we frequently think of things that can be difficult for audiences to approach. But Lee Hoiby considered himself the caretaker of an heirloomed garden that started back with Mozart and Haydn, and even earlier than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lena<\/a>

Lena Orgain, APSU Professor of Music Jeffrey Wood and the late American composer Lee Hoiby. <\/p><\/div>\n

On a recent Tuesday morning, Wolynec checked the voicemail on his cell phone and learned that the 85-year-old Hoiby had recently passed away. The New York Times ran an obituary that day, calling Hoiby \u201ca composer of operas and songs that balance unabashed lyricism and careful craftsmanship.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2007, Hoiby spent two weeks in Clarksville as the holder of the APSU Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence. During his residency, he formed a deep bond with the APSU Department of Music, and that relationship continued to grow until his untimely death last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a good friend of the department,\u201d Jeffrey Wood, professor of music at APSU, said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had an extensive connection and relationship with him since his residency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wood was the one who originally invited Hoiby to the campus in 2007 to serve as the Acuff Chair of Excellence. The two men, with similar dry senses of humor, quickly formed a friendship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a program of some of his solo vocal music,\u201d Wood said. \u201cAnd I performed his violin sonata, and Lisa Bishop (director of the APSU Opera Workshop) and I did a monodrama of \u2018Bon App\u00e9tit,\u2019 which is his piece based on Julia Child. In the process of working on these two very large pieces, I got to know him pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The APSU Wind Ensemble premiered a new work by Hoiby, \u201cAmerican Parade,\u201d during the composer\u2019s residency. The work was based on an orchestral suite that he wrote in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so impressed with the \u2018American Parade,\u2019 that he gave me a copy of the score and a recording of the full suite, and we commissioned him to arrange the other two movements of the suite for wind ensemble,\u201d Wolynec said.<\/p>\n

The University also commissioned Hoiby to write a triple concerto, which the APSU Wind Ensemble premiered last spring at the College Band Directors National Association\u2019s Southern Division Conference at the University of Mississippi.<\/p>\n

\u201cLee was here for almost a week with us for that,\u201d Wolynec said. \u201cHe came back last spring, when we gave a preview concert here. That work was called \u2018Prayer and Perception,\u2019 and it was really beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

During that visit last spring, the University hosted a special luncheon with Hoiby as the guest of honor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was spectacular,\u201d Christopher Burawa, director of the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, said. \u201cHe spoke about his apprenticeship with Samuel Barber, the great American composer. He talked about writing music for (American soprano) Leontyne Price. He just had us enchanted, talking about his life experiences and art, and the importance of supporting the arts, especially the Acuff Chair. He talked about why the Acuff Chair is important for young, up-and-coming artists to be able to work intimately with a working artist like himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoiby\u2019s works include several noted operas, such as \u201cSummer and Smoke,\u201d \u201cGalileo Galilei\u201d and \u201cThe Tempest,\u201d as well as more than 100 works for voice and piano, which have been performed throughout the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of the last members of a generation of composers who saw themselves as part of the grand tradition in music, and who were, in some degree, blindsided by the 1960s,\u201d Wood said. \u201cThey became extremely unfashionable. But long about the mid-70s, things began to change. By the 1980s, people were starting to look at this music with fresh eyes. I\u2019m very pleased Lee lived long enough to see this regrowth of interest in his music. I know they\u2019re working on mounting a production next season of his \u2018Romeo and Juliet,\u2019 and it breaks my heart that he won\u2019t be able to hear it. Just breaks my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

The APSU Wind Ensemble recently recorded the commissioned pieces by Hoiby, and the University is planning to release those works on CD in the near future.<\/p>\n

For more information on Hoiby and his relationship to APSU, contact the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts at 931-221-7818.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – In his later years, the renowned American composer Lee Hoiby was a quiet, slender gentleman with wavy gray hair and intelligent, often amused eyes. His appearance suited his style of music, which was reminiscent of the pleasing tunes of the early Romantic era and of his idol, Franz Schubert. \u201cHis music is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,589,1129,7350,7348,7351,262,2509,7344,4017,5451,7345,7346,7349,5522,7347],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-1wW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5887,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886\/revisions\/5887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}