American classical composer
Janika Vandervelde
(born 1955) is an American composer, pianist, and music educator. Her work, notable for its
feminist
and ecological themes, has won numerous awards. Known for her music for
orchestra
,
chorus
,
chamber ensembles
and the stage, she also teaches composition.
[1]
Biography
[
edit
]
Janika Vandervelde was born in
Ripon, Wisconsin
, and grew up in nearby
Green Lake
, playing horn and piano starting at age five.
[2]
She began composing in her teens. After undergraduate studies in
music education
at the
University of Wisconsin?Eau Claire
,
[2]
she relocated to the
Twin Cities
of
Minnesota
, earning a doctorate in
composition
from the
University of Minnesota
(1985), where her teachers included
Dominick Argento
and
Eric Stokes
. She has taught intermittently at the University of Minnesota School of Music, and teaches regularly at
Hamline University
and at the
Perpich Center for Arts Education
, a residential high school for the arts in Golden Valley, Minnesota. Vandervelde is the author of
Music by Kids for Kids
, a composition curriculum designed for computer labs equipped with
MIDI
keyboards, published by the
American Composers Forum
. She was associate conductor of the Mississippi Valley Chamber Orchestra, and also served as music director at
Wesley United Methodist Church
in
Minneapolis
.
[3]
[4]
Compositions
[
edit
]
Vandervelde is known especially for her choral music, which has been commissioned and performed by groups such as
Chanticleer
, the
Dale Warland Singers
, and the
Oregon Repertory Singers
, and by conductors including
Sir David Willcocks
.
[5]
She has composed more than 100 works for orchestra, choir, chamber ensembles, and soloists, as well as two operas,
Hildegard
(1989) and
Seven Sevens
(1993), and has written extensively for young audiences. Among the fruits of her three-year tenure as composer-in-residence for the
Minnesota Chorale
and two other Twin Cities organizations was
Adventures of the Black Dot
, a "choral storybook" for children, with story by Judy McGuire and staging by Kari Margolis.
[6]
Recent projects include choral music for
The Student
, a collaboration with choreographer-director Vanessa Voskuil, and a 65-minute electronic soundscape for
Diana Takes a Swim
, a collaboration with dancer-choreographer Deborah Jinza Thayer. Vandervelde's work is published by
Hothouse Press
,
earthsongs
,
Augsburg Fortress
,
Boosey & Hawkes
, and
Miela Harmonija
.
Reception
[
edit
]
Vandervelde's music has been warmly received. She has been called "a passionate experimenter and ingenious explorer of new sonorities" and "a composer whose style reflects a freely inquisitive artistic personality."
[7]
Most notably, the feminist musicologist
Susan McClary
argued that Vandervelde's piano trio "
Genesis II
moves metaphorically through a series of natural, cultural, and historical worldviews, holding them in tension and contradiction."
[8]
McClary also argued that "Vandervelde's use of a rhythmically insistent but harmonically ambiguous academic
minimalism
[expresses] female embodiment and pleasure."
[9]
McClary's
feminist
readings of Vandervelde's work, along with her readings of other composers, ignited a debate in musical criticism and scholarship.
Genesis II
(premiered and recorded by the Mirecourt Trio) is discussed at length in
Take Note
, an undergraduate music-appreciation textbook by musicologist
Robin Wallace
, published in 2014 by
Oxford University Press
; the work is part of the book's "core repertory."
Awards
[
edit
]
Vandervelde has won numerous awards for her work as a composer, including multiple Bush Artist Fellowships and
McKnight Foundation
Composer Fellowships. She is also a recipient of the
Lili Boulanger
Award from
The Women's Philharmonic
of San Francisco.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"AGO National Convention 2008"
. Archived from
the original
on 2013-04-16
. Retrieved
2012-01-13
.
- ^
a
b
"Talent at Piano Leads to Conducting, Composing"
.
The Oshkosh Northwestern
. August 27, 1980. p. 20
. Retrieved
April 7,
2018
– via
Newspapers.com
.
- ^
Zoran Minderovic.
"Composer Janika Vandervelde"
. All Music Guide
. Retrieved
5 October
2010
.
- ^
Green, Lucy (2001).
Music, gender, education
. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
9780521555227
. Retrieved
11 November
2010
.
- ^
"Biography"
. Retrieved
5 October
2010
.
- ^
Burns, Kristine Helen (2002).
Women and music in America since 1900: an encyclopedia, Volume 1
. Greenwood Press.
ISBN
9781573562676
. Retrieved
11 November
2010
.
- ^
"Janika Vandervelde | Biography | AllMusic"
. allmusic.com
. Retrieved
26 August
2015
.
- ^
Tomlinson, B. (2010).
Feminism and Affect at the Scene of Argument: Beyond the Trope of the Angry Feminist
. Temple University Press. p. 105.
ISBN
9781439902486
. Retrieved
26 August
2015
.
- ^
Zak, A. (2000).
The Velvet Underground Companion: Four Decades of Commentary
. Music Sales Corporation. p. 97.
ISBN
9780825672422
. Retrieved
26 August
2015
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Artists
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|