Diana McIntosh

Diana McIntosh (born March 4, 1937 in Calgary , Alberta ; née Lowes ) is a Canadian pianist, composer and performance artist.

Life

McIntosh was a student of Gladys Egbert in her hometown, Boris Roubakine at the Royal Conservatory of Music , Adele Marcus at the Summer Music School in Aspen, Colorado, Alma Brock-Smith and Leonard Isaacs in Winnipeg, and Michael Colgrass in Toronto. Until 1972 she studied at the School of Music at the University of Manitoba , where Robert Turner was one of her teachers. She then gave courses there for seven years on the music of Canadian composers, which she presented as a piano soloist or in chamber ensembles and with the involvement of visual media, dance and theater.

She also appeared as a piano soloist with the CBC Winnipeg Orchestra and gave concerts on radio and television for the CBC . She premiered works by Peter Allen , Norma Beecroft , Robert Daigneault , Alexina Louie , Marjan Mozetich , Boyd McDonald , Jean Papineau-Couture , Ann Southam , Robert Turner and John Winiarz . In 1977 she founded Music Inter Alia , a series of events dedicated to the performance of contemporary music, especially Canadian music. In the 14 years of its existence, almost 300 works have been performed in the series, including 42 commissioned compositions by Canadian musicians. Many performances in the series were broadcast by the CBC; since 1981 the event has been linked to a competition for young composers. Since 1992 the series has been taking place under the name GroundSwell . Here McIntosh served as one of the artistic directors and finally as president.

In the early 1980s she was commissioned by Chris Hurley from The Manitoba Puppet Theater to compose music for the puppet show Kiviuq based on the Inuit legend of the same name . In 1985 this resulted in the work Kiviuq - An Inuit Legend for CBC Radio . In 1986 McIntosh was Composer in Residence at the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, Ontario.

McIntosh performs regularly at the Winnipeg New Music Festival . Her solo program Solitary Climb was performed here in 1990 , in which she used not only the piano but also mountaineering equipment as a musical instrument. Another solo work was Beryl Markham: Flying West with the Night , which premiered in 1995. In 2001 the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra performed Through The Valley: Milgaard for piano, narrator and orchestra. The work commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra 9 Foot Clearance for piano and orchestra took part in the 2002 Canadian Concerto Competition of the Orchester symphonique de Québec .

McIntosh gave concerts in Canada, the USA, Great Britain, France, Portugal and other European countries and in 2002 went on a three-week tour of Kenya. She has received compositions from Rivka Golani , Patricia Spenser , Beverley Johnston and Victor Schultz and has worked with choreographer Rachel Browne on several occasions .

Works

• Eliptosonics for speaker, piano, tape and slides, 1979
• Luminaries for piano and flute, 1979
• Sonograph for recorder, oboe and bassoon, 1980
• Extensions for piano and tape, 1981
• Gulliver for piano and recorder, 1981
• Tea For Two At Whipsnade Zoo for recorder and tape, 1982
• Gradatim Ad Summum for piano four hands, 1982
• A Different Point of View for tape and slide projections, 1982
• Kiviuq (for Puppet Theater) for tape, 1982
• Doubletalk for voice and tape, 1983
• Aiby Aicy Aidyai for children's piano, 1983
• Sound assemblings for piano and tape, 1983
• Glorified Chicken Mousse for piano, speaker and tape, 1984
• Go Between for three pianos and tape, 1984
• Four or Five For Four or Five for recorder, oboe, bassoon, harpsichord and percussion, 1984
• Two New Minutes for piano, 1984
• To A New Year for voice, drums and tape, 1985
• Two Pianola With Vistlen, Shtompen and Keys for two children's pianos , 1985
• Kiviuq - An Inuit Legend for eleven instruments and narrator, 1985
• … And 8:30 in Newfoundland for speakers and percussion, 1986
• Channels for piano, 1986
• Tay Ploop for piano, drums and tape, 1986
• Gut Reaction for viola and tape, 1986
• Dual Control for two pianos, 1986
• Tongues Of Angels for piano, soprano and percussion, 1986
• Solitary Climb for piano, speaker, tape and video projection, 1986
• User Friendly for soprano and double bass, 1987
• Playback for piano, violin and clarinet, 1987
• All In Good Time for piano and tape, 1988
• Shadowed Voices for piano, speaker and percussion, 1988
• Worlds Apart for piano, 1988
• Through Ancient Caverns for piano four hands, 1988
• Rôles Renversés for piano and soprano, 1988
• Margins of Reality for string orchestra, 1989
• Time Out for clarinet, 1990
• Dance for Daedalus for piano and alto saxophone, 1990
• Climb to Camp One for piano, 1990
• Points of View for piano, 1990
• Sampling the Communication Parameters in the Ambience of Structural Phrasing and Dynamics in Contemporary Music for piano and speaker, 1991
• The Arm of Dionysus for violin and tape, 1991
• Imprints for piano, oboe and mezzo-soprano, 1991
• Nanuk for piano and viola, 1991
• Patterns And Digressions for flute, clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon, 1991
• Braille For The Wind's Hand for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone and tape, 1992
• McIntosh The Stein Way for piano, percussion, speaker and tape, 1992
• Dream Rite for tape, voice and drums, 1992
• Murkings for piano, percussion and voice, 1993
• Processions for piano, 1993
• In A Sense for piano, percussion and speaker, 1994
• Beryl Markham-Flying West With the Night for piano, speaker and tape, 1995
• Courting the Muse for two pianos and text spoken by the pianists, 1995
• Nine-Foot Clearance for piano and orchestra, 1995
• The Mountain Gods for piano, speaker and tape, 1996
• Patterns for speaker and tape, 1996
• Slipping The Bonds - From Birds to Bondar for piano, speaker, percussion and tape, 1999
• Time And Again for piano, flute and clarinet, 1999
• Through The Valley: Milgaard for piano, tape and narrator, 2001
• Wenkchemna for flute, violin, horn, cello and two storytellers, 2001
• Four On The Floor for four pianos, trombone, trumpet, horn and two percussionists, 2002
• She Had Some Horses for cello, drums, tape and narrator, 2002
• The Wiwaxy Ledges for piano, speaker and tape, 2002
• From Wapta Ice for piano, tape and speaker, 2003
• Moments ago for piano and violin, 2003
• Uhuru Kamili for piano and percussion, 2003
• Psalm 46 for choir and organ, 2003
• That Damned Elusive Muse of Mine for piano, drums, electronic sounds and narrator, 2004
• From A Dark Journey for piano, 2004
• Summit ridge for piano and tape, 2005
• Approaching Kilimanjaro for percussion, piano and string quartet, 2005
• Bow Them away for flute choir, 2005
• In the beginning, mountains for choir, solo soprano and solo clarinet, 2005
• Fancy Free (or Pensés enfantine) for cello, percussion and speaker, 2006
• All Too Consuming for drums, tape and narrator, 2006
• Elephant Walk for drums and speaker, 2006
• A Mir Prelude and Fugue , for piano, 2007
• A rose is a rose… for piano and live electronics, 2007
• Porini, Porini! for bassoon, 2007

Web links

• Homepage of Diana McIntosh