Presenters, performers, composers, students, professors, independent musicians, and music lovers from all over the nation participated in the First Annual Music by Women Festival to help recognize and pass on to the next generation important works written by great artists. It all happened at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, Mississippi. I presented my own analysis of a string quartet by my good friend and colleague Sky Macklay. Everyone who attended dreams of a future when works by women will be a ubiquitous part of the performance canon of Western concert music; they believe every recital, every orchestral performance will one day feature music by women composers. Festival Artistic Director and Chair of MUW's Department of Music Dr. Julia Mortyakova feels this is the reason it is important to highlight this music, and I trust that most music students and members of the general public do too. Don't you?
No Boys Allowed (Well, Not Entirely)
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.