Good afternoon everyone,

How are you doing? I am reading a great book by Kate Molleson, called Sound Within Sound:

Molleson has employed her expert knowledge and refined perspective in selecting which ten artists to include in what, in less discerning hands, could have been an unwieldy, daunting tome. She has chosen ‘ten beautifully messy, confounding, brave, outrageous, original and charismatic composers’. Each one of these elegantly written biographical essays describes a remarkable, singular, creative life, strewn with political, social and domestic obstacles. They describe a fierce commitment to their art, a refusal to compromise and a determination to write whatever music they pleased. They are wonderful characters, if apparently not all easy people to get along with.

https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2022/07/sound-within-sound-kate-molleson-review/

… and found out about a new composer. Well, not really new, but I didn't know about her before I read her chapter. Here's Ruth Crawford:

Ruth Crawford Seeger, who was born 100 years ago this week, saw beauty in small things. Amid Chicago's indifferent, hurried sprawl, she could find herself transfixed by a piece of scrap paper, which, "rustling along the sidewalk, created a perfect scherzo of rhythmic variety and subtlety". When she made that observation at the age of 26, Crawford Seeger was already becoming a confident and daringly original composer. In her mid-30s she stopped writing. At the age of 52 she died.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jul/07/arts.highereducation1

Here's her Music for Small Orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJMnGrKSB8

So you know, I haven't massively engaged with her work with vocals, although it is considerably less distressing that some of the other vocal stuff in Sound Within Sound, blimey.

A xx.