CD130   Conrad Susa: Carols & Lullabies

Conrad Susa: Carols & Lullabies & other Christmas Music Philovox Ensemble of Boston Jennifer Lester, director Complete texts and translations 55'37" total playing time CD130    $15.95

Listen:

No. 8. “El noi de la Mare” and No. 9. “Chiquirriquitin” from Carols and Lullabies by Susa

Conrad Susa

Conrad Susa (b. 1935) began composing music in 1955 when his composition teacher, Nicolai Lopatkikoff, convinced him that composing was 'it." After graduating from Carnegie Institute of Technology cum laude, he became staff pianist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under William Steinberg. Mr. Susa studied composition at Juilliard where he won a number of awards including a Ford Foundation Fellowship. His scores for theater, documentary films and television total more than one hundred and have been performed at major theaters and festivals. His first opera, Transformations, and his second, Black River, were commissioned and premiered by the Minnesota Opera Company. His opera, Don Perlimpin, was a joint commission from The San Francisco Opera and PEPSICO/Summer Fare. The Dangerous Liaisons, based on the famous French novel, was commissioned, premiered and televised by the San Franscisco Opera in 1994. Mr. Susa is presently resident composer for the Old Globe Theater in San Diego and on the faculty of San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In spite of his infatuation with theater, he has managed to compose regularly for chorus, both sacred and secular. All of Conrad Susa's works are published exclusively by the E.C. Schirmer Music Company of Boston, Massachusetts.

Carols and Lullabies, Christmas in the Southwest
In 1992, Conrad Susa wrote the following about Carols and Lullabies:
     "Four or five years ago, Philip Brunelle suggested I write him a companion piece to Brittan's A Ceremony of Carols. To a composer, this tempting offer was another way of asking 'How's about writing us a hit?' After several years of me writhing in doubt, a friend, Gary Holt, showed me a collection of traditional Spanish carols he had sung as a boy in Arizona. Excited, I juggled them around to form a narrative. I noted their many connections with Renaissance music along with their homey, artful simplicity. Finally, the overriding image of a Southwestern piñata party for the new baby led me to add guitar and marimba to Britten's harp and to compose connective music and totally re-conceive the carols.
      In an often overlooked detail in the Christmas story, the New Baby bawls loudly as the shepherds leave in the final bars of Chiquirriquitín. (You may hear him in your mind.) His parents now must dandle and soothe him to sleep. Tired themselves, they drift off as the angels hover about them in protective adoration."

Carols and Lullabies was commissioned by and dedicated to Philip Brunelle and the Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota, who premiered the work on December 6, 1992 at Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis. The work is also arranged for men's and women's chorus.

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