Kay Gardner (composer)
Encyclopedia
Kay Gardner (1941–2002) was a musician
, composer
, author
, and musical producer involved in using music for creative and healing purposes. Her compositions include works for chamber orchestra, symphony orchestra, choir
, flute
, voice and piano
. She was very active in promoting the work of contemporary female musicians and composers.
, Gardner wrote and performed her first piano composition at the age of four. She subsequently went on to gain performance experience in chamber, orchestral, and vocal music. Gardner is considered a founder of the women's recording industry, and founded her own independent record label, Even Keel Records. She produced 17 albums, both of her own music and of others'. Gardner composed works for flute, piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and choir.
Chamber Works (published by Sea Gnomes Music)
Orchestral Works
Oratorio and Opera
Choral Works
(Mixed Chorus)
Solo Instrumental Works
Solo Vocal Works
Lectures and Literature
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and musical producer involved in using music for creative and healing purposes. Her compositions include works for chamber orchestra, symphony orchestra, choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, voice and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. She was very active in promoting the work of contemporary female musicians and composers.
Biography
Born in Freeport, New YorkFreeport, New York
Freeport is a village in the town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, USA, on the South Shore of Long Island. The population was 42,860 at the 2010 census. A settlement since the 1640s, it was once an oystering community and later a resort popular with the New York City theater community...
, Gardner wrote and performed her first piano composition at the age of four. She subsequently went on to gain performance experience in chamber, orchestral, and vocal music. Gardner is considered a founder of the women's recording industry, and founded her own independent record label, Even Keel Records. She produced 17 albums, both of her own music and of others'. Gardner composed works for flute, piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and choir.
Selected works
MusicChamber Works (published by Sea Gnomes Music)
- Romance
- Touching Souls
- Crystal Bells
- Lunamuse
- Mooncircles, 1975, Urana Records/Wise Women Enterprises, distributed by Olivia RecordsOlivia RecordsOlivia Records was a collective founded in 1973 to record and market women's music. Olivia, named after the heroine of a pulp novel by Dorothy Bussy who fell in love with her headmistress at French boarding school, was the brainchild of ten lesbian-feminists living in Washington, DC who wanted to...
- Prayer to Aphrodite
- Atlantis Rising
- The Rising Sun: Variations on an American Blues Theme
- The Seasons
- Winter Night, Gibbous Moon: Saga for Eleven Flutes
- Vocalise (on BachJohann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's Prelude in C-minor) - Earth Shadows for BassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
& Chamber Ensemble - Viriditas
- North Coast Nights
- Rondo
- Sailing Song
- Women at the Lakeside
- A Rainbow Path
Orchestral Works
- Lament for the Thousands
- Century March
- Rainforest (for chamber orchestra; recorded by the Bournemouth SinfoniettaBournemouth SinfoniettaThe Bournemouth Sinfonietta was a chamber orchestra founded in 1968 as an off-shoot of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.-Formation:The orchestra was initially conducted by George Hurst, who acted as artistic adviser, and Nicholas Braithwaite, in order to perform the classical repertoire in the...
, Leonarda Records) - The Rising Sun: Variations on an American Blues Theme
- Night Chant
- Prayer to Aphrodite
- The Greenwood
- Quiet Harbor
Oratorio and Opera
- Ouroboros: Seasons of Life--Women's PassagesOuroboros: Seasons of Life--Women's PassagesOuroboros: Seasons of Life—Women's Passages is a Neopagan oratorio by musician, author, and composer Kay Gardner. Written between 1992 and 1994, it was produced by Ladyslipper Records and recorded by an all-female group for the 1994 National Women's Music Festival...
(text: Charlie Hutchins and Ila Suzanne) - Ladies' Voices: A Short, Short Opera (text: Gertrude SteinGertrude SteinGertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
)
Choral Works
(Mixed Chorus)
- Aquarian Anthem (text: Kay Gardner)
- Time is But the Stream...(text: Henry David ThoreauHenry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
) - Stopping By Woods (text: Robert FrostRobert FrostRobert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
) - Beloved Presence (text: Mohammed Hafiz)
- Three Sumerian Hymns (for chorus & large ensemble)
- Affirmation: A Benediction (text: The Upanishads)
- Mary Had a Baby (Traditional Spiritual)
- The Banshee Song (text: Kay Gardner)
- Lucina's Light: A Yuletide Pageant/Cantata (Women's Chorus)
- When We Made the Music (text: Kay Gardner)
- The Rootwomen (text: J. Goldspinner)
- A Creed for Free Women (text: Elsa GidlowElsa GidlowElsa Gidlow was a poet, who in 1923 published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States: On A Grey Thread. She promoted alternative spiritualities including Buddhism and Goddess Worship. In the 1940s she founded a rural retreat center, The Druid Heights Artists Retreat,...
) - Dancing (text: Susan GriffinSusan GriffinSusan Griffin is an eco-feminist author. She describes her work as "draw[ing] connections between the destruction of nature, the diminishment of women and racism, and trac[ing] the causes of war to denial in both private and public life." She received a MacArthur grant for Peace and International...
) - Song of the Dying AmazonAmazonsThe Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
(text: Shirley Tannenbaum) - The Spider and the Fly (text: Mary HowittMary HowittMary Howitt was an English poet, and author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly. She was born Mary Botham at Coleford, in Gloucestershire, the temporary residence of her parents, while her father, Samuel Botham, a prosperous Quaker of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, was looking after some mining...
) - Charge of the Star Goddess (text: Traditional)
Solo Instrumental Works
- A River Sings (for solo cello)
- The Elusive White Roebuck (for horn & piano)
- Moonflow (on Beethoven's Moonlight SonataPiano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata , was completed in 1801...
; for flute & piano) - Innermoods (for flute & guitar)
- Seven Modal Improvisations (piano with any instrument/s)
- Mariachi (for marimba)
- Travelin' (for guitar)
- Thou Little Tiny Child(piano arrangement of The Coventry Carol)
Solo Vocal Works
- Mother's Evening Prayer (text:Mary Baker EddyMary Baker EddyMary Baker Eddy was the founder of Christian Science , a Protestant American system of religious thought and practice religion adopted by the Church of Christ, Scientist, and others...
) - On Marriage (text: Kahlil Gibran)
- Fragments (text: Hsin PingHsin PingHsin Ping was the fourth and fifth abbot of Fo Guang Shan and the dharma heir to Hsing Yun, founder of Fo Guang Shan. Hsin Ping was the forty-ninth lineage-holder of the Linji Ch'an school through Hsing Yun....
) - Mindful of You (text: Edna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
) - Three Mother Songs
- Two Sapphic Songs (text: Elsa GidlowElsa GidlowElsa Gidlow was a poet, who in 1923 published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States: On A Grey Thread. She promoted alternative spiritualities including Buddhism and Goddess Worship. In the 1940s she founded a rural retreat center, The Druid Heights Artists Retreat,...
) - Wise Woman
- Beautiful Friend
- Changing
Lectures and Literature
- Music as Medicine: The Art & Science of Healing With Sound (9-hour lecture series on tape; Sounds TrueSounds TrueSounds True is a multimedia publishing company based near Boulder, Colorado. It was created in 1985 by Tami Simon. The company has published approximately 1,000 titles, including spoken-word audio recordings, books, music, filmed events, multimedia packages and online educational programs from...
) - Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music as Medicine (1990)
Sources
- Ouroboros: Seasons of Life--Women's PassagesOuroboros: Seasons of Life--Women's PassagesOuroboros: Seasons of Life—Women's Passages is a Neopagan oratorio by musician, author, and composer Kay Gardner. Written between 1992 and 1994, it was produced by Ladyslipper Records and recorded by an all-female group for the 1994 National Women's Music Festival...
cd booklet (Ladyslipper Records, 1994) (primary source) - Kay Gardner's Webpage (primary source)