Recording: a performance in Serbia (4’32”)

Lecture points

Review sheet for Louie and Distant Memories

Alexina Louie

• Canadian composer from Vancouver
• studied RCM piano (ARCT), went to UBC (Vancouver) and then University of California for university
• more social changes: Chinese descent (immigrant), woman composer
• studied with Robert Erickson and Pauline Oliveros (another woman composer)
• one of her most well know pieces is O Magnum Mysterium: In Memoriam Glenn Gould
  • Gould is the famous Canadian pianist who specialized in Bach (see recording of Bach C minor fugue)
• taught at RCM, York, UWO
• SOCAN, honorary doctorate from UofC, Order of Canada

Distant Memories

• from Music for Piano commissioned by Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects (1982)
  • commissions are where a composer is paid a certain amount to write a piece of music (may be for a specific ensemble or circumstance)
  • dedicated to Louie’s piano teacher Jean Lyons
• senza misura: Italian “without metre”, to play free of any definite tempo
• arch form: a form whose parts are symmetrical about the middle, such as ABCBA
  • second half repeats first half but in reverse order
• berceuse: French “lullaby” – a simple childlike tune
  • quasi means “resembling” or “in the style of”