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Andrea Clearfield Composer and Pianist |
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Andrea's MUSIC SALON (History): The Salon Celebrates 20 Years!
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The Salon, a performance series in the home and modeled after the 19th Century European salons, was founded in September 1986 by composer/pianist Andrea Clearfield. Andrea hosted monthly Salons from September through May at her 1427 Spruce Street location and has recently moved into a larger space to accommodate the growing number of audience attending. Unlike the Salons of the past, the Salon was conceived with the idea of integrating different music genres as well as other arts. The Salon features not only classical chamber music and opera, but also jazz, original contemporary compositions, electronic, improvisation, folk, experimental, world music, poetry, dance and multimedia works. Near the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, the Salon reflects the strong tradition of music in our city and fosters new art forms in an intimate and supportive atmosphere. David Patrick Stearns wrote a story for the Philadelphia Inquirer on the Salon and WHYY broadcast a story celebrating the 15 year anniversary season. In 2003, Peter Burwasser wrote an article on the Salon for the City Paper. Salons begin at 7:30pm and shoes are removed at the door. Email Andrea for more details.
Read more about the Salon:
The Salon: An 18-Year Philadelphia Tradition
By Andrea Clearfield, published in the Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), vol. 10/2 (2004): 15-18
Listen to the Salon story on WRTI:
Creatively Speaking! With Jim Cotter
Susan Lewis: The Salon, underground concert series
May 20, 2006
Listen to the Salon story on WXPN:
Philadelphia Music Makers Series with Tracy Tanenbaum
April 2007
Watch the TV spot on the Salon on WHYY:
WHYY Experience:
"Andrea's Music Salon
Andrea Clearfield's home-based Salon has been creating community through music for 20 years. This monthly performance and concert series started with friends invited by the musician/composer host and then expanded to a free email subscription service. Clearfield organizes the evening to achieve a warm, engaging concert experience featuring original compositions, jazz, electronic, improvisation, folk, experimental, poetry, dance, world music, and time-honored classical chamber music and opera. As to the performers, Clearfield says, "People want to come to a place where they can be really free to express themselves from the heart."
Read Peter Burwasser's article on Andrea and the creative process:
Andrea Clearfield, Composer (PDF: 100 KB / 4 pages)
Music Maker's Magazine, September, 2006 (www.philamusicmakers.com)
Winner 2006 Citypaper Choice Awards: Most Creative Way to Spend a Sunday
For 20 years, contemporary classical pianist-composer Andrea Clearfield has hosted performance salons that throw open the door to artistic possibility. Her gatherings for musicians, composers, poets, dancers and choreographers are not only vibrant recitals, they’re critical sessions for sound explorers, archivists and adventurers tuned into a different cosmic station. - Philadelphia City Paper, November 1, 2006
THE LONG BRIGHT, A Cantata on Breast Cancer
The Long Bright is an hour-long cantata on breast cancer that was premiered on April 26, 2004 by Hila Plitmann, soprano, Jane Foster, off-stage soprano, The Temple University Music Prep Children’s Choir and Orchestra 2001, James Freeman, Artistic Director. The premiere was held at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia and served as a fundraiser for breast cancer research.
The Long Bright is set to texts by David Wolman, who commissioned the work. Mr. Wolman wrote these poems during the five years between his wife’s diagnosis and her death from breast cancer. His wife, Anni Baker, was an acclaimed coloratura soprano, Broadway singer and a strong supporter of contemporary vocal music. The cantata is in two movements that contain arias, choral sections and instrumental interludes. The poem, “The Long Bright”, frames the piece. Portions of The Long Bright are informed by Anni Baker’s varied repertoire that includes art songs, musical theater and opera. A number of layered fragments from Anni’s varied recital pieces appear in the “Melisma” aria and an excerpt from a folk opera that she composed is heard in the last movement. The Long Bright also alludes to contemporary American popular music as well as to the music of Anni’s longtime friend, Samuel Barber.
A 5-note theme is built from the opening two notes of the piece, heard in its entirety in the first choral passage. This recurring motif departs from and returns to the same note, representing the cycle of life.
The title, The Long Bright, can be perceived as the white light at the end of the tunnel (of death), the long and bright hope for a cure and the fierce brightness of our lives, the white light of our souls - within which, like the color white that can contain all colors, we can feel deeply all things. I was inspired by David Wolman’s generous sharing of the experience of his wife’s death in the form of these deeply personal and moving poems and I am honored to have been asked to set them to music. It is my hope that the piece will be a tribute to Anni Baker’s memory and the fullness of life that she embodied, and that it will generate an increased awareness of breast cancer and the need for finding a cure.
David Patrick Stearns wrote about The Long Bright in The Philadelphia Inquirer on April 22, 2004, “Phila. composer’s cantata honors a Phila. benefactor” and on May 23, 2004 in his column, The Music Report “Classical music reinvents its relevance to times”. The Long Bright was awarded the 2005 Theodore Front Prize for Chamber and Orchestral Music from the International Alliance of Women in Music. For score/parts rental, or piano/vocal score, contact Andrea at aclearfi@aol.com
WOMEN OF VALOR, An Oratorio on the Women of the Bible
Women of Valor is a celebration of women from the Old Testament. The oratorio was inspired by a midrash (biblical commentary) on Proverbs where each line of the biblical text from Proverbs 31 represents a biblical woman. The hour-long oratorio is scored for soprano and one or two mezzo-soprano soloists, narrator and symphony orchestra. It was given its world premiere in Los Angeles on April 16th, 2000 by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony under the direction of Dr. Noreen Green and was favorably reviewed in the Los Angeles Times. Soloists were Hila Plitmann, soprano and Gail Dubinbaum, mezzo-soprano, and the narrator was noted television actress Valerie Harper. The performance was sponsored by Hadassah Southern California, who created educational programs around the work. Portions of Women of Valor were aired nationally on NPR's All Things Considered. "Ruth's Aria" was awarded First Prize in the Classical Category of the American Jewish Music Festival 2000 Competition. The chamber version of Women of Valor is scored for soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists, violin, Middle Eastern percussion, piano and narrator and has been performed at the University of Pennsylvania as part of the international colloquium "Jewish Biblical Interpretation in Comparative Context" sponsored by the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies as well as at area synagogues. "Prayer" for soprano, harp and string orchestra from Women of Valor has been performed at the Liacoras Center in Philadelphia at the Opening Ceremonies for the National Maccabi Games in honor of the Munich 11 athletes and was also performed in October and November, 2001 in Beverly Hills as a memorial to those who died on September 11, 2001. "Jocheved" is arranged for women's chorus and has been performed in England, Germany and the U.S. by the Lady Chapel Singers and is published in the Episcopal Church Hymnal Supplement "Voices Found: Women in the Church's Song" by Church Publishing. The Lehigh Valley Symphony presented the East Coast premiere in January, 2004 in Allentown, Pa. and an arrangement of the work for chamber orchestra was performed by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony in March, 2004 with celebrity narrator Laraine Newman. Women of Valor is published by Oxford University Press (www.oup.com).
The Women of Valor chamber ensemble can give performances of the oratorio in your area and can be booked by contacting Andrea at aclearfi@aol.com. All of the arias from Women of Valor are also arranged for voice with piano accompaniment. Contact Andrea for score and parts. CD’s are available upon request.
Texts for Women of Valor are drawn both from the Bible and from modern poems and prose. The Biblical texts include portions from Genesis, Judges, The Book of Esther as well as the entire "Eishet Hayil" (literally "A Woman of Valor") poem from Proverbs, sung and narrated in English, Hebrew and Yiddish. The work is composed in three large sections, each including recitatives, arias, duets, narrated portions and orchestral interludes, similar to an oratorio. The Eishet Hayil text comprises the recitatives, and the arias are the stories of biblical women from the perspective of ten contemporary women writers. "Women of Valor" highlights the stories of Sarah, Leah, Rachel, Jocheved, Miriam, Hannah, Jael, Michal, Ruth and Esther. Texts are by Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy, Rivka Miriam (translated from the Hebrew by Linda Zisquit), "Rachel" (translated from the Hebrew by Robert Friend), Rabbi Rayzel Raphael, Sandy Shanin, Roza Yakubovitsh (translated from the Yiddish by Dr. Kathryn Hellerstein), Isidor Lillian, Dr. Ellen Frankel and Andrea Clearfield.
The musical material for "Women of Valor" incorporates ancient Hebrew synagogue chants as well as other traditional melodies which are sung to the Eishet Hayil text. These melodies are woven through the piece like a tapestry, connecting threads between the old and the new. A Renaissance technique called soggetto cavato dalle vocali was employed where a theme is carved out from the vowels of a phrase. Thus, the theme for the oratorio was created from the vowels of "Women of Valor" where o-e-o-a-o becomes do-re-do-fa-sol. Likewise, the longer version of the theme, do-re-do-fa-sol-sol-la-ti, is derived from the vowels of the words ""Women of Valor, Who Can Find?" and rises like this question from the opening of Proverbs 31. Heard in a multiplicity of forms, this theme pervades the work. Another structural element is shaped by the acrostic nature of Proverbs 31, which uses each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. "Women of Valor" employs a 22-note scale which was devised from three synagogue prayer modes, providing a musical representation of the literary acrostic. Each line of the biblical text is sung on a consecutive degree of the scale, preceeded by a chime tone."
While not an authentic representation of any traditional ritual, prayer or musical style, "Women of Valor" is influenced by cantorial ornamentation, biblical instruments, Jewish dance forms and Middle-Eastern and Sephardic music so that these elements became resources for color, melody, rhythm, phrasing and orchestration. Mixed meters, syncopated rhythms, traditional scales and percussion instruments such as the dumbek, rik (small tambourine), finger cymbals and sistrem add a Middle-Eastern flavor to the composition. Portions of ancient melodic patterns, called tropes, sung to the Torah, can be heard in the Sarah, Miriam, Hannah and Ruth arias as well as in fragments and layers in the orchestral prelude and other interludes. The centerpiece of the work, "Miriam's Dance", was inspired by the biblical heroine, Miriam, who led the women in song and dance after the crossing of the Red Sea. Among the tropes woven through the dance is the particular melodic pattern that is chanted to Miriam's "Song of the Sea" in the Book of Exodus.
The biblical stories have been passed down from generation to generation and transformed with each re-telling. Likewise, the music in "Women of Valor" unfolds in continuous variation. By employing a musical device called heterophony, a melody is heard by many instruments at the same time, but each statement differs slightly from the others. Out of this sea of chant, various themes emerge. Strata of musical ideas also represent the rich and complex interpretative layers of the Eishet Hayil text. This large-scale work can be likened to a musical midrash which reflects the poetic, colorful, heart-felt, mysterious, evocative and celebratory aspects of the texts.
See Reviews for critics' reviews of "Women of Valor".
"Women of Valor" logo by Louise Clearfield.
Andrea Clearfield |