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Music
for Budding Artists, Music Educators, Accomplished Amateurs,
and Professional Musicians Alike
Welcome
to Wiscasset Music Publishing Company. Our first publication
was a book of Bach Chorales,
printed one below the other, to compare different harmonies
of the same chorale. Following this tribute to J.S.
Bach, the company, founded in 1975, became a vehicle
to make the compositions from B.
Warren's repertoire more easily accessible, many
of them filling a void for music in instrumental combinations
under-represented in contemporary music. Players of
wind instruments in particular are well rewarded here,
as are singers who will find a diverse collection of
songs and works for mixed chorus.
Of
particular note to music educators is the range of works
to choose from -- in scoring, difficulty, and playing
time. In addition, the Wiscasset Music Listening Series,
begun in 1998, offers educators from the elementary
to high-school levels an easy and economical way of
nurturing interest in music from the 12th century to
the present time.
Several
of the works were commissioned by institutions such
as Harvard University and Radcliffe College. Others
were written as competition pieces for young artists.
B. Warrren's style has been described variously as playful,
rhythmically energetic, and lyrical. The music is deceptively
simple, as well as accessible and musically satisfying
to the ear of musicians and public alike.
The
proof, however, is in the hearing. For this reason,
many of the entries in the Catalog section include recorded
excerpts. Just look for the Music Clip symbol.
B.
Warren,
a native of Massachusetts, comes from
a musical family. Her mother, Warren's first singing teacher,
was an opera singer trained in Italy and France. In the
1950's and 60's, Warren turned her early vocal training
into a career performing with such well known conductors
as Boris Goldovsky in Boston and Anthony Amato in New
York. She also gave solo recitals in New York, Boston,
Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich, and London. Since then Warren
has written widely for the voice. Four operas, numerous
solos, and a half dozen choral pieces are valuable additions
to soloists and groups seeking English-language pieces
in the modern classical idiom.
Warren
began to compose at an early age. Her style matured
under her studies with Nadia Boulanger, and with Aaron
Copeland, Walter Piston, and Archibald Davison at Harvard
University, where she received her MA in music in 1943.
Following in the footsteps of her teacher, Walter Piston,
and her New England compatriot, Charles Ives, she has
developed and evolved a style that is sparse, lyric,
and stylized.
Her
works have been performed in Boston and beyond. Her
first opera, with a libretto inspired by O. Henry's
"Gift of the Magi" and especially written
by poet David McCord, has been performed at venues as
diverse as The New Orleans Opera, Texas Christian University,
and the Harvard Club of Boston. Her piece entitled "Jonah,"
written for baritone and string quartet, with English
and German texts from the King James version and the
Luther Bible, was first performed at the Royal College
of Music in London in 1981.
Since
1997, Warren
has divided her time between composing and developing
and producing The
Wiscasset Music Listening Course. Currently planned
in four volumes, the course is an outgrowth of Warren's
support of ready-made, cost-effective music education
tools for youngsters and teens, which build their interest
in and love for traditional and classical music, past
and present. This music course follows the philosophy
of music educators Archibald Davison and Thomas Surette
from the Concord Summer School of Music (1915-1938).
This institution established a new basis of music education
in the schools of America, and its founders insisted
that students should be exposed to the best classical
music of every country, without dilution.
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