CYNTHIA GREEN LIBBY

• Derek Limback: Ripple Effect - Beauty

RADIO INTERVIEW - WFIU [NPR]

“[ * * * * ] There is plenty of enjoyable variety here, always under the arch of the distinctive oboe sound.”

Paul Kennedy, Audiophile Audition [March 2014]

“There is great ambience to this music… Many listeners will enjoy the serene and atmospheric sounds of this music.”

Schwartz, American Record Guide [September/October 2013]

“Thank you, Cynthia Libby and colleagues from Missouri State University, for the challenge and richness of this recording. The credentials of all the performers are exemplary…”

Susan Borwick, International Alliance for Women in Music [April 2013]

"Cynthia Green Libby plays a Josef oboe which offers the opportunity to play both rich tones and is structured to blow for a lighter feel. In the music performed on this CD, Libby displays her range… [In Abdel-Rahim’s Boyayrat al-lotus] the skitting oboe is still pure and held in dynamic control by Libby… [In Shakkei] Libby comfortably leaps over octaves, revealing the gentle and expressive nature of her instrument… Libby has a clear control of vibration and supple phrasing… The recording has an unusually edged contemplative beauty, often silken in tone. It will give pleasure for meditation and also for an understanding of the oboe’s singular charms.”

Susan, ConcertoNet [January 2013]

 

Jamal Abdel-Rahim is the founder of the first composition department in the Arab world at the Cairo Conservatory of Music in Egypt. His oboe writing included quarter-tone embellishments called maqamat, found in certain Arabic modes. In this recording, improvised percussion includes the dumbek, riq, hoof rattle and zil. [ www.gamal-abdelrahim.com ]

Welsh-born composer Hilary Tann lives in upstate New York where she is the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union College in Schenectady. Shakkei, a term used in Japanese landscape design, means “borrowed scenery. The first movement, Slow and spacious, is inspired by Mount Hiei as viewed from Shoden-ji, a temple with a dry landscape garden. The second movement, Leggiero, is inspired by the hills of Arashiyama as viewed from Tenryu-ji, a temple with a lush stroll garden. In
musical terms, the sparse landscape of the first movement is complemented by an “overgrown” second movement. In both, the composer lightly borrowing from Debussy’s Nuages (Clouds) since the idea of borrowing was part of the identity of the piece.” This transcription for oboe and piano was completed in the spring of 2012 for Cynthia Green Libby and Peter Collins. [ www.hilarytann.com ]

Do Hong Quan is a Vietnamese composer from Hanoi, where he serves as Dean of the Composition Faculty at Hanoi Conservatory. On this recording, an arresting range of percussion, including improvised solo tam-tam, cowbells and dohl as well as the oboe and piano, provide a stark difference of texture from the other works featured on the disc.

Born in Lima, Peru, Marcelle Soulage was raised in Paris and studied at the Paris Conservatory, where she won first prize in accompanying, counterpoint and composition, and later taught. Although her elegant Pastorale was composed in 1920, the piece was not published until 2010, by Jeanné Music.

Composer Derek Limback is the Director of Bands in St. James, Missouri. His works have been performed at conferences, jazz festivals, high schools and universities throughout the United States. He writes: “[This work] was commissioned by Libby and Chesman in 2010. Shortly after finishing the sketches for the work, a student of mine, Jessica Brinker, was killed on one of our high school band bus trips. In her memory, the class made T-shirts with the words “Beauty, Resilience and Joy”, available in three neon colors. Dr. Libby helped me to decide to use these three words, as they fit the
movements very well.” Ripple Effect was premiered at the 2011 International Double Reed Society Conference in Tempe, Arizona. [ www.dereklimback.com ]

A native of Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Vercoe teaches at Regis College in Massachusetts, and has received numerous awards for her work, including grants from the Artists Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer. Butterfly Effects was written for the flute and harp duo “2” for premiere in Thailand in 2009, and was subsequently arranged in 2010 for Libby and Chesman, who performed it at the 2011 International Alliance for Women in Music Congress
in Flagstaff, Arizona. The composer writes: “Along with the butterflies themselves, a quotation from the Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi, was the starting point for the music: ‘Am I a human who dreamt of being a butterfly or am I now a butterfly who dreams of being human?’ The Taoist philosopher’s dream illustrates, among other lessons, his sense of oneness with all living beings.” Each movement loosely evokes the butterfly named in its title. [ www.elizabethvercoe.com ]

Cynthia Green Libby serves as professor of oboe, theory and world music at Missouri State University (MSU), and as principal oboe of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. She studied at the Berlin Musikhochschule and Banff Centre School of Fine Arts in Canada, and holds academic degrees from the University of Michigan (BMA, MM) and Eastman School of Music (DMA, Performer’s Certificate). Graduating in 2007 from the International Harp Therapy Program, she was the first Certified Harp Therapy Practitioner in the state of Missouri, and established a course at MSU dealing with the healing power of music. Since the 1980s, she has promoted and premiered numerous
works by women internationally; more than twenty oboe pieces have been dedicated to her by Libby Larsen, Joan Tower and others. Also active as a writer, Libby’s articles have been published in Women of Note Quarterly, The International Alliance of Women in Music Journal, The Journal of the International Double Reed Society, Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Harp Therapy Journal, and others.

GAMAL ABDEL-RAHIM (1924-1988)
BOHAYRAT AL-LOTUS (THE LOTUS POND) for oboe and piano

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
HILARY TANN (b.1947)
SHAKKEI Diptych for oboe and small orchestra
ARRANGED FOR OBOE AND PIANO IN 2012
Mt. Hiei from Shoden-ji (Slow and spacious)
Arashiyama from Tenryu-ji (Leggiero)

DO HONG QUAN (b.1956)
FOUR PICTURES for oboe, two percussion and piano
Andante
Allegro scherzando
Adagio
Allegro con brio

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
MARCELLE SOULAGE (1894-1970)
PASTORALE, Op.15 for oboe and harp

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
DEREK LIMBACK (b.1974)
RIPPLE EFFECT: THREE PIECES FOR NEON for oboe and harp
Resilience
Beauty
Joy

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
ELIZABETH VERCOE (b.1941)
BUTTERFLY EFFECTS for flute and harp
ARRANGED FOR OBOE AND HARP IN 2010
Mourning Cloak
Common Jezebel
Question Mark
Monkey Puzzle
Psyche




MSR Classics