Leo Sowerby - Concerto for Harp and Small Orchestra (2/2)

Leo Sowerby (1895-1968)
Concerto for Harp and Small Orchestra, H. 123 (1916/1919)

Stephen Hartman, harp
Monadnock Festival Orchestra
James Bolle, conductor

Leo Sowerby is best known for his contributions to church music as a composer, organist, and choirmaster. His catalog of over 550 works includes a significant quantity of organ music, sacred cantatas, and choral anthems. Sowerby also composed a wide range of secular music, including works for jazz band and arrangements of folk songs; his style is notable for its melding of traditional American folk, blues, and jazz music into European classical forms.
Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sowerby was a primarily self-taught musician, beginning to compose at the age of ten. In his teenage years he studied theory with Arthur Olaf Andersen and piano with Calvin Lampert at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. His Violin Concerto was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1913, when Sowerby was 18 years old. He served as a bandmaster in the US Army during World War I, then returned to the American Conservatory to finish his studies in 1918. Sowerby lived in Chicago for most of his life, teaching at the American Conservatory and serving as organist and choirmaster at the St. James (Episcopal) Cathedral. He was also for many years the de facto composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony; his symphonic works were performed by major orchestras throughout the United States.
Sowerby was in 1921 the first composer from the United States to be awarded the Rome Prize; he also received the Pulitzer Prize for his cantata Canticle of the Sun (1944). In 1962 he was invited to found and direct the College of Church Musicians at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, where spent the last years of his life. ~ Art of the States

Category:

Music

Tags:

• leo
• sowerby
• harp
• concerto
• american
• impressionism

[baroqueman1]

Sowerby is best-known for his church music, yet this piece shows mastery in other genres. I'm glad to have come across this pleasant item.

[charpnatl]

This is a very nice recording of a very tasty peice of music!

[Clivejvaughan]

Yet another composer I've never heard of, and all the poorer for it - delightful music !

[Kiarinadia]

I appriciate hearing a new composer for me. Thanks.

[shishirth]

Nice work and very well performed. Thnks for the upload!