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Amra Bosnić

(b Kuršumlija, Serbia, 1966). Bosnian and Herzegovinian composer. She graduated with a degree in composition from the Academy of Music in Sarajevo (1991), in the class of josip magdić, after which she gained the Master of Composition (2004) under the mentorship of composer dejan despić. Her first position was at the Srednja muzička škola (‘music high school’) in Valjevo, Serbia (1992–2000). She returned to Eastern Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to work as an Associate Professor of Harmony and Harmonic Analysis.

Dutina’s compositions reflect her interest in Balkan folklore, mostly of a rural-vocal type, and in the formal and harmonic devices associated with neoclassicism. She has composed solo songs, chamber music, symphonic works, vocal-instrumental music, choral music, music for children, and film music.

Dutina also cherishes folkloric vocal traditions through her engagement as founder and artistic director of the female vocal ensembles Rusalke (...

Article

Byron Adams

(Marc)

(b Cleveland, Aug 28, 1959). American composer, conductor, baritone, and editor. The child of Holocaust survivors, Hoffman studied at the Boston Conservatory, where he received the BM, magna cum laude, in 1981. He earned the MM from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1984, and he received the PhD from Brandeis University in 1993. His teachers included Arthur Berger, Martin Boykan, Hugo Norden, Chris Roze, Harold Shapero, Larry Alan Smith, and Yehudi Wyner. From 1990 to 1998, Hoffman worked as an editor at the music engraving company Scores International in Boston, and he was hired as an editor at ECS Publishing immediately thereafter.

Since the mid-1980s, Hoffman has composed a substantial body of choral music. Many of these pieces reflect his Jewish heritage, and his sacred works can be used in temple services. This music is also sung widely in churches, high schools, universities, and by professional choral ensembles. In addition, he has composed choral works using secular texts along with pieces for keyboard solo, solo voice, chamber ensembles, and full orchestra. Hoffman’s work has been commissioned by ensembles such as the Carolina Brass and ALEA III (a contemporary music ensemble). His piece ...

Article

Donna Arnold

(b Makaryev, Kostroma Province, Russia, 20 March/1 April 1896; d Lakewood, NJ, 9 Oct 1985). Russian émigré choral conductor, founder of the Don Cossack Choir. He studied at Moscow’s Synodal School of Church Singing, and afterwards joined a Don Cossack regiment in the Russian Civil War. Defeated by Bolsheviks and exiled from Russia in 1920, his regiment was interned at a miserable camp near Istanbul. Ordered to found a choir to raise morale, he arranged repertoire from memory and, remarkably, transformed 36 amateur singers into a world-class ensemble. Once liberated, the Don Cossack Choir began a high-profile international career that spanned six decades.

Its concerts, sung in Russian, comprised Russian Orthodox liturgical works and folk, traditional, and soldier songs. Jaroff arranged most of the music. Conducting with minimal hand movements and penetrating facial expressions, he evoked extremely expressive rubatos and dynamic changes that enthralled audiences. The Don Cossacks were particularly renowned for their brilliant technique and superb octavists (whose vocal range extended to an octave below the bass) and falsettists. Jaroff’s unusual inclusion of falsettists was crucial to the choir’s compelling signature sonority and made mixed-choir masterpieces from the Russian canon feasible. Extra-musical factors, especially the very short Jaroff’s strict control of his Cossack giants, fascinated and delighted their fans....

Article

William D. Gudger

Member of Jochum family

(b Babenhausen, March 18, 1898; d Bad Reichenhall, Oct 24, 1969). German choirmaster and composer. He studied the organ, the piano and theory with his father, Ludwig Jochum. He entered the Augsburg Conservatory and then the Munich Akademie der Tonkunst, where he studied conducting, the piano and composition, the last with Joseph Haas. From 1922 he taught at a singing school in Augsburg and in 1933 followed his singing teacher Albert Greiner as director of the municipal singing school. In 1932 his oratorio Der jüngste Tag op.28 won a national first prize; he was also commissioned by the International Society for Catholic Music to compose an opera on the theme of Jacob and his fight with the angels. The work was scheduled to be performed in 1933 in Aachen, Cologne and Rome, but the Nazis outlawed the project since material based on the Old Testament was no longer deemed ideologically acceptable. Jochum recovered from this setback, composing patriotic works such as the cantata ...

Article

Robert J. Pascall

(Christian)

Member of Stockhausen family

(b Paris, July 22, 1826; d Frankfurt, Sept 22, 1906). German baritone, conductor, and teacher of Alsatian descent, son of Franz Stockhausen and Margarethe Stockhausen. He showed his musical gifts early and during his school years learnt singing and musical rudiments from his parents and the piano from Karl Kienzl, also having lessons on the organ, violin, and, later, the cello. In 1843 he visited Paris, where he was a pupil of Cramer for a short while. From 1844 he made Paris the centre of his musical education, spending some time at the Conservatoire (from 1845) but learning harmony from Matthäus Nagiller and singing from Manuel García outside the institution.

Stockhausen’s early concert successes were in Switzerland and England, beginning in 1848 with a performance of Elijah at Basle. In 1849 he followed García to London, and while in England he appeared before Queen Victoria. He sang again in Switzerland in the first half of ...