Bernadette Speach


Bernadette Speach is an American avant-garde composer and pianist. Known for her minimalist approach, she often synthesizes improvisation and through-composed material.

Biography

Born in Syracuse, New York, Speach earned her B.S. in Music Education from the College of Saint Rose in 1971. Five years later, while studying abroad in Siena, Italy, she was introduced to Franco Donatoni and Morton Feldman. She went on to study with Feldman, alongside composers Lejaren Hiller and Leo Smit, at SUNY Buffalo, where she finished her M.A. and Ph.D. in Music Composition, and before that studied under Jacques Louis Monod and Nicolas Rousakis at Columbia University.
Although trained in the classical idiom, Speach is equally rooted in jazz, and in the latter vein includes room for aleatory elements in her compositions, ranging from solo and chamber to orchestral and vocal/choral works. An example is her second string quartet, les ondes pour quatre, which blends fixed and free durations. Notable performers of her work include the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra under Lukas Foss, the Absolute Chamber Orchestra under Kristjan Järvi, pianist Ursula Oppens, saxophonist Oliver Lake, Duo Avanzando, pianist Anthony de Mare, the Soldier String Quartet, soprano Joan LaBarbara, Arditti String Quartet, and cellist Frances-Marie Uitti. Her music has been programmed in such venues as Roulette Intermedium, Festival International de Musica, the Ravinia Festival, Merkin Hall, Walker Art Center, the Internationales Musikinstitut, and the Knitting Factory.
Her large-scale work Embrace the Universe, for orchestra, mixed chorus, soprano, viola and piano was premiered May 9, 2016 at Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy. In 2010, she was commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center to compose a piece as part of pianist Anthony de Mare’s “Liaisons: Re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano.” The result was In and Out of Love and received its premiere at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in 2011. Inspired by “Liaisons” and “Send in the Clowns” from Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, In and Out of Love was released September 2015 as part of a 3-CD set of the entire “Liaisons” project recorded by de Mare for the ECM label to critical acclaim. Its producer, Judith Sherman, received a Grammy Award for Classical Producer of the Year.
Other commissions have come from percussionist Ricardo Souza, soprano Lauralyn Kolb, the National Endowment for the Arts 1992, the Minnesota Composers Forum 1992, iEAR Studios/Department of the Arts/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1989, the Manhattan Neighborhood Network/The Kitchen Video Workshop, 1995-96, and the New York State Council on the Arts, 1992.
Speach has been composer-in-residence at the Brooklyn College Electroacoustic Studio, received a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and received grants and awards from Arts Midwest, Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program, and Meet the Composer. She is also a seasoned improviser—sharing performances with her husband, guitarist/composer and poet Thulani Davis, among others—and as pianist is regarded for her interpretations of the keyboard repertoire of John Cage, including In a landscape and his pieces for toy piano.
Speach is a lifelong teacher and arts administrator. Before her current post at SUNY Adirondack, she held positions at Darmstadt, The New School, SUNY Purchase, the College of Saint Rose, and Brooklyn College, and has been a guest lecturer at many others besides. She has also served as panelist and advisor for a large number of organizations, including Colorado Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, New Music America Festivals, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts. She also served as executive director for The Kitchen and Composers’ Forum, Inc. in New York City. She continues to vitalize the northeastern United States music scene through her multiple roles as fundraiser, presenter, and educator, seeking new relationships between sounds and their interpreters.

Works

Pillars
altrove/elsewhere
after sunrise
In and Out of Love
TreeSing
A Set of Three
Only/Solimente
Embrace the Universe
Viola
Anne
Parallel Windows – Unframed
When It Rains, Llueve
Angels in the Snow
Avanzando
Chosen Voices
9/8/89
Within
les ondes pour quatre
'Shattered Glass'' '''

Poetry/music collaborations with Thulani Davis

Meditations: Abandon All Hope of Fruition
Meditations: Kundun and The Womb of Buddha
Meditations: Upriver Sea Islands from The Translator and Womb of Buddha
Passages and Outtakes
Woman Without Adornment
Baobab 4
'Telepathy Suite'' '''

Improvisations for Piano and Guitar

Debabelized Brook
Hell’s Gate
Toy Rings
Glove Quartet
Lago
Outside In
at the same time
Sound Crowds
It’s Your Turn
3-1/2
Blue
Phill’s Phault
'Two in the Morning'' '''

Recordings
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