Margaret Fairlie- Kennedy (1925-2013)
Margaret Fairlie- Kennedy (1925-2013)
Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy (1925-2013)
Atlanta-born Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy was commissioned by many contemporary dance companies and chamber groups, and worked with noted choreographers Takehiro Ueyama in New York, Bill Bayles at Bennington College, and Peggy Lawler at Cornell. Her music extends the usual sonorities of the instruments and has a strong rhythmic drive at its core.
She composed works for voice, orchestra, and mixed media. She was Composer in Residence for Dance and Theater Arts at Bennington College and Cornell University. Awards and Grants include the NEA and NEH Endowments, the Georgia Commission on the Arts, Meet the Composer grants ,and the Cornell Council for Creative and Performing Arts. She was a winner in the Philadelphia Classical Symphony/Maxfield Parrish and Women Composers' Showcase, New Jersey City University, competitions, with her work Desert Echoes.
Commissions included the Walker Art Center, Cornell Theater Arts Dept., several choreographers and commissions for 20th and 21st century works. Performances included the Alabama Symphony. Atlanta String Quartet and Relache Ensemble; venues at Eastman School of music, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, the Bowling Green College of Musical Arts Festival,'05, and abroad in Paris, Upsala and Beijing. Her music is published by ACA, the SCI Journal of Music Scores, and EC Schirmer Publishing. CD recordings are available on Capstone and Euterpe labels. Fairlie-Kennedy was a member of ACA, SCI, AMC, IAWM, NYCC and BMI.
Missing Saturn
Year: 2002
Duration (in minutes): 25'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: orchestra and chamber orchestra
Description: A musical conception based on excerpts from the autobiographical memoir AN UNQUIET MIND - A MEMOIR OF MOODS AND MADNESS by Kay Redfield Jamison. Dr. Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and co- author of the standard text.
Hey Nonny Nonny
Year: 2002
Duration (in minutes): 6'39;35'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any female voice, any high voice, any string, any voice, any woodwind, flute, piano, soprano, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Based on a poem by Ithaca poet Ann Silsbee, commissioned by Women's Works, Ithaca,N.Y.; premiered March 2002, Unitarian Church, Ithaca N.Y. (tape available)
Desert Echoes
Year: 1999
Duration (in minutes): 12'39;40'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble
Instruments: any low voice, any male voice, any string, any voice, any woodwind, bass voice, cello, clarinet, flute, percussion, piano, violin
Description: Tape Available. Won performance award in the Maxfield Parrish competition by the Philadelphia Classical Symphony. "Using long strands of undulating scales and trills she eloquently expresses the color and light of the American West as well as the loneliness of the vast desert in plangent solos on the flute,bass clarinet and cello." City Paper,Philadelphia "the impressionism of Fairlie-Kennedy's impressive Desert Echoes gave way to clarinet, cello and flute cadenzas of a ravishing tranquility." The Jewish Exponent,Philadelphia
Summer Solstice (with percussion version)
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 23'39;40'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, flute, percussion, piano, violin
Description: Tape available.
Summer Solstice
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 23'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument quintet
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, flute, piano, violin
Description: Tape available.
Untertow
Year: 1997
Duration (in minutes): 12'39;50'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo instrument with piano, solo string with piano
Instruments: any string, piano, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Commissioned by Sonya Monosoff, Former Professor of Violin at Cornell University; Premiered at MIT, SUNY Potsdam, Wayne State University, and two concerts at Mercer University. CD available. "UNDERTOW is a dynamic and engaging work, exciting to "dig in" and to perform. The composer's knowledge of the participating instruments and their capabilities is most insightful and so is the masterful sense of timing. Above all,the emotional appeal is immediate,sincere and lasting" comment by Movses Pogossian. Movses Pogossian is a Tchaikowsky International Competition winner and youngest ever First Prize winner of the 1985 USSR National Violin Competition. he has performed with the major Russian orchestras as well as those of East and West Europe. And,after his acclaimed American debut with the Boston Pops, 1990, with many American Orchestras. An active chamber musician, he has performed with the Tokyo, Kronos and other major String Quartets. Movses Pogossian is recorded on the Summit, Melodia and Albany labels. He is currently Visiting Artist Teacher at SUNY Buffalo, also teaching at Wayne State University.
Windrider/Final Ascent
Year: 1993
Duration (in minutes): 10'39;25'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any female voice, any high voice, any string, any voice, piano, soprano, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: based on personal history of Jerzy, a refugee from the Warsaw Ghetto. Commissioned/Premiered Pro-Mozart Society, Atlanta, 1993. Performed by members of the Atlanta Symphony. Mary Flagler Trust grant; tape available. "very moving" Barry Cohen, New York
Maura
Year: 1992
Duration (in minutes): 10'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any high voice, any male voice, any string, any voice, cello, piano, tenor voice, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: based on personal history of Jerzy, a refugee from the Warsaw Ghetto. Commissioned/Premiered Pro-Mozart Society, Atlanta, 1993. Performed by members of the Atlanta Symphony. Mary Flagler Trust grant; tape available. "very moving" Barry Cohen, New York
Night Calls
Year: 1991
Duration (in minutes): 18'39;35'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: ballet/dance
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: and recorded bird and animal cries; commissioned for a Dance Theater production, Cornell Univ.; tape available: "sensitively blends recorded animal cries and synthesized sound with a lively ensemble of strings, winds and percussion...the score supports the choreography with a vibrant, crystaline sound" the Ithaca Journal.
Wedding On The Eiffel Tower
Year: 1968
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: musical theater
Description: members of the Atlanta Symphony, actors, dancers; Commissioned by Georgia Arts Commission for ETV.
Four Studies For Six Instruments
Year: 1964
Duration (in minutes): 14'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players
Description: Minneapolis Symphony Premiered Walker Center, Minn, 1965.
Images For The Young Pianist
Year: 1963
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: Galaxy Music Corp.
Description: pub Galaxy Music Corporation, 1963, 138 Ipswich Street, Boston, MA 02215 ($5.85). Piano Quarterly, 1964, selected this collection as one of ten best teaching collections of year, and "Dripping Faucet" as one of ten best pieces.
Four Images For Piano
Year: 1962
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: selected from state-wide call for NYWC 1989 Weill Recital Hall Concert, E. Rodgers, pianist; Composers Forum, Contemporary Music series, NYC; Upsala. Tape available. "makes expressive use of a single tone row offered in permutations that allow for movements of greatly differing character... eloquence and energy... vibrant, atmospheric and dreamy" New York Times,1989.
Wind Quintet
Year: 1961
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;50'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, woodwind ensemble, woodwind quintet
Instruments: any brass, any woodwind, bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn, oboe
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Premiered Bennington College. Composers' Forum, University of Iowa, Walker Art Center; Rosenstone Gallery, Chicago. Performed by Lark Quintet. Tape avail. "perkily syncopated and both humorous and piquant - a delightful end to the program. The Chicago Sun-Times
Concerto For Piano And Orchestra
Year: 1960
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: concertos
Description: Premiered Southeastern Composers' Forum, Tuscaloosa. Tape avail. "its vigor and imagination, coupled with unusually effective orchestral scoring, made it a standout of the Forum" The Tuscaloosa Times "the areas of sound created by the Atlanta composer are highly effective....her concerto has sweep,excitement and great audience appeal" The Chattanooga Times "it was a composition of considerable tension, compactly built and strongly dissonant... especially striking is the comp
Trio For Violin, Clarinet And Piano
Year: 1958
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;20'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, clarinet, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Premiere SE Composers Forum, Julius Hegyi Trio. performed Music in Our Time Series, 92nd St. Y, 1958. Tape available.
Bennington Tensions
Year: 1958
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, percussion ensemble
Instruments: percussion
Description: "a great deal of vivacity and charm" Lester Trimble, Bennington Herald
Recital Pieces Collection
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Description: available through composer
Atlanta-born Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy was commissioned by many contemporary dance companies and chamber groups, and worked with noted choreographers Takehiro Ueyama in New York, Bill Bayles at Bennington College, and Peggy Lawler at Cornell. Her music extends the usual sonorities of the instruments and has a strong rhythmic drive at its core.
She composed works for voice, orchestra, and mixed media. She was Composer in Residence for Dance and Theater Arts at Bennington College and Cornell University. Awards and Grants include the NEA and NEH Endowments, the Georgia Commission on the Arts, Meet the Composer grants ,and the Cornell Council for Creative and Performing Arts. She was a winner in the Philadelphia Classical Symphony/Maxfield Parrish and Women Composers' Showcase, New Jersey City University, competitions, with her work Desert Echoes.
Commissions included the Walker Art Center, Cornell Theater Arts Dept., several choreographers and commissions for 20th and 21st century works. Performances included the Alabama Symphony. Atlanta String Quartet and Relache Ensemble; venues at Eastman School of music, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, the Bowling Green College of Musical Arts Festival,'05, and abroad in Paris, Upsala and Beijing. Her music is published by ACA, the SCI Journal of Music Scores, and EC Schirmer Publishing. CD recordings are available on Capstone and Euterpe labels. Fairlie-Kennedy was a member of ACA, SCI, AMC, IAWM, NYCC and BMI.
Missing Saturn
Year: 2002
Duration (in minutes): 25'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: orchestra and chamber orchestra
Description: A musical conception based on excerpts from the autobiographical memoir AN UNQUIET MIND - A MEMOIR OF MOODS AND MADNESS by Kay Redfield Jamison. Dr. Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and co- author of the standard text.
Hey Nonny Nonny
Year: 2002
Duration (in minutes): 6'39;35'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any female voice, any high voice, any string, any voice, any woodwind, flute, piano, soprano, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Based on a poem by Ithaca poet Ann Silsbee, commissioned by Women's Works, Ithaca,N.Y.; premiered March 2002, Unitarian Church, Ithaca N.Y. (tape available)
Desert Echoes
Year: 1999
Duration (in minutes): 12'39;40'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble
Instruments: any low voice, any male voice, any string, any voice, any woodwind, bass voice, cello, clarinet, flute, percussion, piano, violin
Description: Tape Available. Won performance award in the Maxfield Parrish competition by the Philadelphia Classical Symphony. "Using long strands of undulating scales and trills she eloquently expresses the color and light of the American West as well as the loneliness of the vast desert in plangent solos on the flute,bass clarinet and cello." City Paper,Philadelphia "the impressionism of Fairlie-Kennedy's impressive Desert Echoes gave way to clarinet, cello and flute cadenzas of a ravishing tranquility." The Jewish Exponent,Philadelphia
Summer Solstice (with percussion version)
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 23'39;40'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, flute, percussion, piano, violin
Description: Tape available.
Summer Solstice
Year: 1998
Duration (in minutes): 23'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument quintet
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, cello, clarinet, flute, piano, violin
Description: Tape available.
Untertow
Year: 1997
Duration (in minutes): 12'39;50'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo instrument with piano, solo string with piano
Instruments: any string, piano, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Commissioned by Sonya Monosoff, Former Professor of Violin at Cornell University; Premiered at MIT, SUNY Potsdam, Wayne State University, and two concerts at Mercer University. CD available. "UNDERTOW is a dynamic and engaging work, exciting to "dig in" and to perform. The composer's knowledge of the participating instruments and their capabilities is most insightful and so is the masterful sense of timing. Above all,the emotional appeal is immediate,sincere and lasting" comment by Movses Pogossian. Movses Pogossian is a Tchaikowsky International Competition winner and youngest ever First Prize winner of the 1985 USSR National Violin Competition. he has performed with the major Russian orchestras as well as those of East and West Europe. And,after his acclaimed American debut with the Boston Pops, 1990, with many American Orchestras. An active chamber musician, he has performed with the Tokyo, Kronos and other major String Quartets. Movses Pogossian is recorded on the Summit, Melodia and Albany labels. He is currently Visiting Artist Teacher at SUNY Buffalo, also teaching at Wayne State University.
Windrider/Final Ascent
Year: 1993
Duration (in minutes): 10'39;25'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any female voice, any high voice, any string, any voice, piano, soprano, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: based on personal history of Jerzy, a refugee from the Warsaw Ghetto. Commissioned/Premiered Pro-Mozart Society, Atlanta, 1993. Performed by members of the Atlanta Symphony. Mary Flagler Trust grant; tape available. "very moving" Barry Cohen, New York
Maura
Year: 1992
Duration (in minutes): 10'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble
Instruments: any high voice, any male voice, any string, any voice, cello, piano, tenor voice, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: based on personal history of Jerzy, a refugee from the Warsaw Ghetto. Commissioned/Premiered Pro-Mozart Society, Atlanta, 1993. Performed by members of the Atlanta Symphony. Mary Flagler Trust grant; tape available. "very moving" Barry Cohen, New York
Night Calls
Year: 1991
Duration (in minutes): 18'39;35'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: ballet/dance
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: and recorded bird and animal cries; commissioned for a Dance Theater production, Cornell Univ.; tape available: "sensitively blends recorded animal cries and synthesized sound with a lively ensemble of strings, winds and percussion...the score supports the choreography with a vibrant, crystaline sound" the Ithaca Journal.
Wedding On The Eiffel Tower
Year: 1968
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: musical theater
Description: members of the Atlanta Symphony, actors, dancers; Commissioned by Georgia Arts Commission for ETV.
Four Studies For Six Instruments
Year: 1964
Duration (in minutes): 14'39;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players
Description: Minneapolis Symphony Premiered Walker Center, Minn, 1965.
Images For The Young Pianist
Year: 1963
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: Galaxy Music Corp.
Description: pub Galaxy Music Corporation, 1963, 138 Ipswich Street, Boston, MA 02215 ($5.85). Piano Quarterly, 1964, selected this collection as one of ten best teaching collections of year, and "Dripping Faucet" as one of ten best pieces.
Four Images For Piano
Year: 1962
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: selected from state-wide call for NYWC 1989 Weill Recital Hall Concert, E. Rodgers, pianist; Composers Forum, Contemporary Music series, NYC; Upsala. Tape available. "makes expressive use of a single tone row offered in permutations that allow for movements of greatly differing character... eloquence and energy... vibrant, atmospheric and dreamy" New York Times,1989.
Wind Quintet
Year: 1961
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;50'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, woodwind ensemble, woodwind quintet
Instruments: any brass, any woodwind, bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn, oboe
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Premiered Bennington College. Composers' Forum, University of Iowa, Walker Art Center; Rosenstone Gallery, Chicago. Performed by Lark Quintet. Tape avail. "perkily syncopated and both humorous and piquant - a delightful end to the program. The Chicago Sun-Times
Concerto For Piano And Orchestra
Year: 1960
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: concertos
Description: Premiered Southeastern Composers' Forum, Tuscaloosa. Tape avail. "its vigor and imagination, coupled with unusually effective orchestral scoring, made it a standout of the Forum" The Tuscaloosa Times "the areas of sound created by the Atlanta composer are highly effective....her concerto has sweep,excitement and great audience appeal" The Chattanooga Times "it was a composition of considerable tension, compactly built and strongly dissonant... especially striking is the comp
Trio For Violin, Clarinet And Piano
Year: 1958
Duration (in minutes): 9'39;20'34;
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: mixed instrument ensemble, mixed instrument trio, small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players
Instruments: any string, any woodwind, clarinet, violin
Publisher: American Composers Alliance
Description: Premiere SE Composers Forum, Julius Hegyi Trio. performed Music in Our Time Series, 92nd St. Y, 1958. Tape available.
Bennington Tensions
Year: 1958
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: larger chamber ensembles - more than 4 players, percussion ensemble
Instruments: percussion
Description: "a great deal of vivacity and charm" Lester Trimble, Bennington Herald
Recital Pieces Collection
Difficulty: Medium (college/community)
Category: piano
Description: available through composer