College of Fine Arts

Department of Music

Presents:

Luz Garcia Souto, Viola

Yasmin Fainstein, Piano

Monday, October 30, 2025

7:30 p.m.

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Colton Recital Hall
Warren M. Lee Center for the Fine Arts

Program
 Marie-Juliette Olga Boulanger, better known as Lili Boulanger was born
in France, August in 1893 Despite her short life, she was able to develop
herself as a full musician: she played violin, organ harp, piano. And
besides this, she was a singer. The composer Gabriel Fauré -who was
Nocturne and Cortage Lili Boulanger her piano teacher- very often performed his own music with Boulanger.
(1893 -1918) Her musical production encompass a wide variety of orchestral,
choral, piano, chamber music and vocal pieces that in every case show a
great deal of maturity.
In 1912 she became the first woman composer to win the Grand Prix
de Rome. This competition was the most important acknowledgement for
an artist at the time and the winners were artists in residence in Villa
Medici, a beautiful palace located in Rome.
Sonata for Viola and Piano Rebecca Clarke Nocturne (1911) y Cortage (1914) are a set of two pieces dedicated to
(1886 - 1979) the violinist Yvonne Astruc and they show the deep influence of romantic
composers as Faure, Massenet and Impressionistic as Debussy. This
pieces were composed in the middle of her musical production but too
close to her death in 1918.
I. Impetuoso
II. Vivace
III. Adagio - Allegro Sonata for Viola and Piano……………………………..Rebecca Clarke

Rebecca Clarke was an English violist, composer and musicologist

Three Pieces
I.Modéré
II.Sans vitesse et a l'aise
III.Vite et nerveusement rythmé
who was born in 1886. During her youth she lived in England and when
she was thirty years old she migrated to United States. Here, she
develop as a teacher and musician in chamber music groups. She did
Nadia Boulanger several tours around the country performing in the most important
musical concert rooms of the country and reaching Hawaii, something
(1883 - 1979) very unusual for her time. She was friends of all great contemporary
composers, among them Hindemith and Bartok.
The Sonata for Viola and Piano has a rather singular history among
Clark’s musical output and in music history overall. The premiere of the
piece took part in a competition organized by Madame Sprague
Coolidge, an arts mecens. The jury of the competition refused to give her
the first prize since they just couldn't believe that a woman was capable
of composing such a piece.
Clark describes herself influenced by Claude Debussy and Ralph
Vaughan Williams.These influences are very easy to listen along the
entire sonata since she uses English folk themes, whole tone scales,
pizzicati, natural harmonics, and sordine for the viola in certain parts of
the second movement. She continued composing until her dead in 1979.

Program Notes Nadia Boulanger……………………………………………...Three Pieces

Nocturne and Cortage ……………………………..………Lili Boulanger Nadia Boulanger was born in France in 1887 and was an extensive
acknowledged pedagogue as much as a composer. She was Lili
Boulanger’s sister, who probably was her first composition student. She
taught the most diverse and prolific composers of the Twentieth century,
among them it is possible to mention Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Astor
Piazzolla, George Gershwin, Egberto Gismonti, Philip Glass and the list
goes on.
She was also a very well known conductor. Because her teaching and
her musical activity she didn’t addressed so many time to compose,
however her output is still original and significative.
The Three Pieces were written in 1915 and they are contrasting
between themselves. The first one sounds very impressionistic, the
second one is a quite melodic canon and the third one seems to be a
grotesque dance.
She died in 1979 after an extensive career that took her to the most
important musical institutions in Europe and United States.