Violet Archer

Violet Archer ( Violet Balestreri , born April 24, 1913 in Montreal , Québec , † February 22, 2000 in Ottawa , Ontario ) was a Canadian composer.

Archer came from the Italian immigrant family Balestreri, who changed their name to Archer. She had piano lessons as a child and studied at the McGill Conservatory until 1936 , then two years at the Royal Canadian College of Organists with John Weatherseed . During this time she worked as a piano accompanist and teacher and percussionist with the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra under Ethel Stark and was organist at various churches in Montreal from 1939 to 1947.

At the same time she took composition lessons with Claude Champagne and Douglas Clarke and in 1942 with Béla Bartók in New York . Since 1947 she studied at the Yale School of Music with Paul Hindemith . She then taught at the McGill Conservatory, was Composer-in-Residence at North Texas State College from 1950 to 1953, and then Professor of Composition at Cornell University and the University of Oklahoma .

A dissertation study, which Archer began in 1961 at the University of Toronto , she broke off after a year to care for her sick mother. Since 1962 she was Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Alberta in Edmonton . She was also active in the Canadian Folk Music Society , the Canadian Association of University Schools of Music and the Canadian League of Composers . After her retirement in 1978, she held lectures at the University of Alberta and guest lectures at the University of Saskatchewan (1990) and the University of Alaska (1992). Among her students were the composer Larry Austin and the cellist Shauna Rolston .

In 1971 Archer received an honorary doctorate from McGill University , as well as honorary degrees from the University of Windsor and Mount Allison University . In 1983 she was named Officer of the Order of Canada and in 1984 the Canadian Composers' Association named composer of the year.

Archer has published more than two hundred and eighty compositions since the early 1940s, including orchestral pieces, two operas , two film scores, chamber music and vocal music.

Works

• Scherzo Sinfonico , 1940
• Britannia, a Joyful Overture , 1942
• Three Scenes for Piano (Habitant Sketches) , 1946
• Passacaglia , 1948
• Fanfare , 1949
• The Bell for choir and orchestra, 1949
• Piano Concerto , 1956
• String Trio No. 2 , 1961
• Prelude Incantation , 1964
• Cantata Sacra , 1966
• Haiku
• Episodes
• Cantata sacra
• Sganarelle , comic opera based on Molière , 1985
• The Meal , Opera, 1985
• Evocations , 1987
• Variations on an Original Theme for Carillon
• Concerto for Accordion and Orchestra , 1999

literature

• Linda Bishop Hartig:  Archer, Violet. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
• Archer, Violet. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 1 (Aagard - Baez). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7618-1111-X  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)

Web links

• Violet Archer ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved March 22, 2015.
• Information from the Encyclopædia Britannica