Ruth Watson Henderson

Ruth Louise Watson Henderson (born November 23, 1932 in Toronto ) is a Canadian composer, pianist and music teacher.

Henderson was a piano student with Viggo Kihl from 1937 to 1945 , then until 1952 at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with Alberto Guerrero , where Glenn Gould was her classmate. With a scholarship from the Mannes College of Music , she continued her education with Hans Neumann in New York. She also took composition lessons from Oskar Morawetz , Richard Johnston and Samuel Dolin .

After her debut in 1952, Henderson appeared regularly as a concert pianist with Canadian orchestras and with CBC / Radio Canada . From 1957 to 1961 she worked in Winnipeg and from 1961 to 1968 in Kitchener as an organist and choirmaster. From 1968 to 1979 she was the piano accompanist of the Festival Singers , for whose repertoire she composed more than eighty pieces.

Since it was founded in 1978, she has accompanied the Toronto Children's Chorus , with which she staged the musical drama Clear Sky and Thunder in 1984 . In addition to choral works, Henderson also composed pieces for piano and organ, for string orchestra and wind instruments. With her Chromatic Partita for Organ she won the International Competition for Women Composers 1998 in Mannheim. For the meeting of the American Guild of Organists in 2002 she composed the piece Darkness to Light .

Henderson has received the National Choral Award for Outstanding Choral Composition (1992 for Voices of Earth ) and the Distinguished Service Award of the Ontario Choral Federation (1996), and in 2003 he was an honorary member of the Royal Canadian College of Organists . On their 70th birthday, the Elmer Iseler Singers gave a concert called Sing We Joyful .

Works

• Pater Noster for choir, 1973
• Missa Brevis for choir, 1976
• Lullaby for the Christ Child for choir and piano or orchestra, 1979
• Musical Animal Tales for choir and piano, 1981
• Clear Sky and Thunder , musical drama for children's choir, flute, piano and percussion, 1984
• Six Miniatures for Piano , 1984
• Suite for Strings , 1985
• Barnyard Carols for choir, flute, viola and cello, 1987
• Creation's Praise for female choir, wind instruments and organ or piano four hands, 1986
• The Bloor Street Mass for choir, wind quintet, organ and timpani, 1987
• Chromatic Partita for Organ , 1989
• Missa Brevis No. 2 for congregation and organ or for choir, 1989
• Three Motets for choir, 1989
• The Last Straw , Christmas cantata for children's piano, English horn and percussion, 1990
• Voices of the Earth for choir and two pianos, 1991
• The Song My Paddle Sings for choir and piano, 1992
• Toccata on "Westminster Abbey" for organ, 1992
• Meditation of "Herzliebster Jesu" for organ, 1992
• In Flanders Fields (text by John McCrae ) for female choir a cappella, 1993
• Sing All Ye Joyful (text by JRR Tolkien ) for choir and orchestra, 1994
• When Music Sounds (text by Walter de la Mare ) for female choir and piano, 1995
• Variations for Organ on "Ode to Newfoundland" , 1997
• In Memoriam Elmer Iseler for eight-part a cappella choir, 1998
• A Joyful Song of Praise (text by David McKane ) for choir, organ and wind quintet, 2000
• From Darkness to Light (text by Wilfred Watson ) for baritone, mezzo-soprano, choir, organ, harp, trumpets, timpani and strings, 2001
• Magnificat for choir and organ, 2002
• The Voice of Niagara (text by Sarah Pratt ) for choir and orchestra, 2003

source

• The Canadian Encyclopedia - Ruth Watson Henderson ( November 1, 2012 memento in the Internet Archive )