The Eighth Annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival (2014)

What a festival! Players and composers from around the country and around the world! Works by David Crumb! Works by Robert G. Patterson! And a new work by yours truly! These are all things resulting from the private chamber series' exclusive devotion (unique to Memphis, TN) to contemporary art music performance and composition. And it all happened on June 18-21, 2014 at Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Oh man, the Festival concerts! David Crumb's (b. 1962) Mood Sequence (2012) and Robert Patterson's (b. 1957) The Soldier’s Ale (2014) were featured in Concerts IV and V respectively. I know what Ralph Graves [WTJU Radio, University of Virginia] think's about Crumb's music: “[Crumb’s] work [has] a spontaneity that’s quite attractive…," and I know what Stephen Ellis [Fanfare] thinks about Patterson's music: “Witty and irresistible,” but what do people think about my Quartet for Alto Saxophone and Strings (2014) which was performed on Saturday, June 21, 2014, 3:30 p.m. in Concert V? The performers said that it was the most challenging and yet the easiest piece they had ever played. Crumb said it wasn't bad (lol). Saxophonist Justin Brown and University of Memphis Professor of Saxophone Allen Rippe loved how the sax, in many respects, was treated as the 2nd violin in a regular string quartet. Walter Hoehn, who commissioned the piece and performed the sax part, really appreciated the virtuosic, soloistic aspect given to his instrument in the 2nd movement. Now it’s time for the rest of the world to put in their two cents. With the lead so many other composers have it looks bad for me. Sometimes I think it will take a miracle for me to attain the success of the likes of Crumb and Patterson. Will I ever have a distinguished record of national and/or international distinction in Composition?

For more info about the annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival go to http://www.belvederefestival.org/

ZANE GILLESPIE

After six years as Minister of Music at Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church (UMC) in Holly Springs, MS, I was recently called to continue to work to address public engagement in music participation as Director of Music Ministries at First UMC in Water Valley, MS. I am a Composer, Theorist, and member of both The College Music Society as well as The Poe Studies Association (PSA). I am also an active pianist and vocalist, specializing primarily in church music. My paper entitled ““Mesmeric Revelation”: Art as Hypnosis” has been published by the international, peer-reviewed journal Humanities. In addition, another paper of mine entitled “A Model of Triadic Post-Tonality for a Neoconservative Postmodern String Quartet by Sky Macklay” has been submitted to the peer-reviewed Music Theory journal Perspectives of New Music. At the end of February 2015, I served as Chair for the session entitled “Aesthetics and Philosophy” at The Fourth International PSA Conference in New York City. On June 21, 2014, my Quartet for Alto Saxophone and Strings, a commission from concert saxophonist Walter Hoehn, was performed as part of Concert V of the Eighth Annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival held at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN. Characteristically neo-romantic (in the original sense of the word), my music earned me the Nancy Van de Vate Award for Composition three times from the University of Mississippi Department of Music. A native of Pontotoc, MS, I hold degrees from the University of Mississippi (BM; MM), and the University of Memphis (DMA) where I was the 2011 recipient of the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music's Smit Composition Award. I live in Memphis, TN.