THE STORY BEHIND: Murphy’s From the Drum Comes a Thundering Beat. . .
Share
THE STORY BEHIND: Murphy’s From the Drum Comes a Thundering Beat. . .
On March 13 & 14, pianist Joyce Yang will join Bramwell Tovey and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra for a program featuring Grieg’s Beloved Piano Concerto.
THE STORY BEHIND: Murphy’s From the Drum Comes a
Thundering Beat. . .
Title: From the Drum Comes a Thundering Beat. . .
Composer: Kelly-Marie Murphy (1964–)
Last time performed by the Rhode Island Philharmonic: this is a RI Philharmonic Orchestra premiere.
Orchestration: The piece is scored for two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, piano, timpani, percussion and strings.
The Story:
We seem to be living in an age of the emerging woman composer. In the United States, the trend made its first deep mark in 1983, when Ellen Taaffe Zwilich won the Pulitzer Prize for Music: the first woman to do so. Just a quick look over the list of recipients of the Pulitzer Prize for Music since then reveals the names of five more women composers:
- 1991: Shulamit Ran
- 1999: Melinda Wagner
- 2010: Jennifer Higdon
- 2013: Caroline Shaw
- 2015: Julia Wolfe
Internationally, the list of women composers who have won major awards would be much too long to publish here. Prominently, among the youngest of these, would be Kelly-Marie Murphy.
From the Drum Comes a Thundering Beat. . . (1995) was Murphy’s first orchestral work, and with it she made her mark by winning a prize in the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1996. Her official list of prizes currently totals 19 (1992-2018). Murphy is a well-educated (Ph.D. from University of Leeds, England) experienced composer, who spent some years working in the Washington, D.C., area. She now makes her home in Canada.
Normally, this is the place where the program annotator tries to describe the piece, to guide the audience as they listen to it, probably for the first time. Instead, here is the revealing review by Canadian music critic Peter Goddard, The Toronto Star, from June, 1998:
“. . . Take for instance Murphy’s From the Drum Comes a Thundering Beat. . . , a 1996 [sic] CBC commission for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and an enormously savvy work. At 13 minutes long, it’s just the right length for a mainstream, Beethoven-friendly audience to accept. And what’s really radical about it isn’t the modern-sounding bits-the clashes coming from edgy orchestral chords rushing headlong into a timpani and drum fusillade-but the five soloist sections where you could hear the subtlety of thought behind the piece."
Program Notes by Dr. Michael Fink © 2019 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
To purchase tickets visit tickets.riphil.org
or call 401.248.7000
