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Sofia Gubaidulina

Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina (Софи́я Асгáтовна Губaйду́лина, София Әсгать кызы Гобәйдуллина; born 24 October 1931) is a Soviet-Russian composer and an established international figure. Major orchestras around the world have commissioned and performed her works. She is considered one of the foremost Russian composers of the second half of the 20th century along with Alfred Schnittke and Edison Denisov.

Early life
Gubaidulina was born in Chistopol, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (now the Republic of Tatarstan), Russian SFSR, to an ethnically mixed family of a Volga Tatar father and a Russian mother. Her father, Asgat Masgudovich Gubaidulin, was an engineer and her mother, Fedosiya Fyodorovna (née Yelkhova), was a teacher. After discovering music at the age of 5, Gubaidulina immersed herself in ideas of composition. While studying at the Children's Music School with Ruvim Poliakov, Gubaidulina discovered spiritual ideas and found them in the works of composers such as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Gubaidulina quickly learned to keep her spiritual interests secret from her parents and other adults since the Soviet Union was hostile to religion. These early experiences with music and spiritual ideas led her to treat these two domains of thought as conceptually similar and explains her later striving to write music expressing and exploring spiritually based concepts.

She has been married three times.

Career
Gubaidulina studied composition and piano at the Kazan Conservatory, graduating in 1954. During her early conservatory years, Western contemporary music was banned almost entirely from study, an unusual exception being Bartók. Raids even took place in the dormitory halls, where searches were conducted for banned scores, Stravinsky being the most infamous and sought after. Gubaidulina and her peers procured and studied modern Western scores nonetheless. "We knew Ives, Cage, we actually knew everything on the sly." In Moscow she undertook further studies at the Conservatory with Nikolay Peyko until 1959, and then with Vissarion Shebalin until 1963. She was awarded a Stalin fellowship. Her music was deemed "irresponsible" during her studies in Soviet Russia, due to its exploration of alternative tunings. She was supported, however, by Dmitri Shostakovich, who in evaluating her final examination encouraged her to continue on her path despite others calling it "mistaken". She was allowed to express her modernism in various scores she composed for documentary films, including the 1963 production, On Submarine Scooters, a 70mm film shot in the unique Kinopanorama widescreen format. She also composed the score to the well-known Russian animated picture "Adventures of Mowgli" (an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book).

In the mid-1970s Gubaidulina founded Astreja, a folk-instrument improvisation group with fellow composers Viktor Suslin and Vyacheslav Artyomov. In 1979, she was blacklisted as one of the "Khrennikov's Seven" at the Sixth Congress of the Union of Soviet Composers for writing “noisy mud instead of musical innovation, unconnected with real life".

Gubaidulina became better known abroad during the early 1980s through Gidon Kremer's championing of her violin concerto Offertorium. "She sprang to international fame in the late 1980s". She later composed an homage to T. S. Eliot, using the text from the poet's Four Quartets. In 2000, Gubaidulina, along with Tan Dun, Osvaldo Golijov, and Wolfgang Rihm, was commissioned by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart to write a piece for the Passion 2000 project in commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach. Her contribution was the Johannes-Passion. In 2002 she followed this with the Johannes-Ostern ("Easter according to John"), commissioned by Hannover Rundfunk. The two works together form a "diptych" on the death and resurrection of Christ, her largest work to date. Invited by Walter Fink, she was the 13th composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2003, the first female composer of the series. Her work The Light at the End preceded Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in the 2005 proms. In 2007 her second violin concerto In Tempus Praesens was performed at the Lucerne Festival by Anne-Sophie Mutter. Its creation has been depicted in Jan Schmidt-Garre's film Sophia – Biography of a Violin Concerto.

Since 1992, Gubaidulina has lived in Hamburg, Germany. She is a member of the musical academies in Frankfurt, Hamburg and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Aesthetic
For Gubaidulina, music was an escape from the socio-political atmosphere of Soviet Russia. For this reason, she associated music with human transcendence and mystical spiritualism, which manifests itself as a longing inside the soul of humanity to locate its true being, a longing she continually tries to capture in her works. These abstract religious and mystical associations are realized in Gubaidulina's compositions in various ways, such as writing in bowing directions that cause the performer to draw a crucifix in the final movement of "Seven Words" for cello, bayan, and strings. Gubaidulina is a devout member of the Russian Orthodox church.

The influence of electronic music and improvisational techniques is exemplified in her unusual combination of contrasting elements, novel instrumentation, and the use of traditional Russian folk instruments in her solo and chamber works, such as De profundis for bayan, Et expecto, the sonata for bayan, and In croce for cello and organ or bayan. The koto, a traditional Japanese instrument is featured in her work In the Shadow of the Tree, in which one solo player performs on three different instruments—koto, bass koto, and zheng. The Canticle of the Sun is a cello concerto/choral hybrid, dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich. The use of the lowest possible registers on the cello opens new possibilities for the instrument.

Further influence of improvisation techniques can be found in her fascination with percussion instruments. She associates the indeterminate nature of percussive timbres with the mystical longing and the potential freedom of human transcendence. In an interview with the modern British composer Ivan Moody, Gubaidulina provides an explanation for how percussion is utilized in her works to show spiritualism. She says, "... percussion has an acoustic cloud around it, a cloud that cannot be analyzed. These instruments are at the boundary between palpable reality and the subconscious, because they have these acoustics. Their purely physical characteristics, of the timpani and membranophones and so on, when the skin vibrates, or the wood is touched, respond. They enter into that layer of our consciousness which is not logical, they are at the boundary between the conscious and the subconscious."

She was also preoccupied by experimentation with non-traditional methods of sound production and, as already mentioned, with unusual combinations of instruments, e.g. Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings (1975), Detto – I, sonata for organ and percussion (1978), The Garden of Joy and Sorrow for flute, harp and viola (1980), and Descensio for 3 trombones, 3 percussionists, harp, harpsichord/celesta and celesta/piano (1981).

Gubaidulina notes that the two composers to whom she experiences a constant devotion are J. S. Bach and Anton Webern, although she had periods of devotion to Wagner, the Second Viennese School, and 16th century music, most notably Gesualdo da Venosa and Josquin des Prez. Among some non-musical influences of considerable import are Carl Jung (Swiss thinker and founder of analytical psychology) and Nikolai Berdyaev (Russian religious philosopher, whose works were forbidden in the USSR, but nevertheless found and studied by the composer).

Style
A profoundly spiritual person, Gubaidulina defines "re-ligio" as re-legato ("re-bound") or as restoration of the connection between oneself and the Absolute. As she explains:"I am a religious Russian Orthodox person and I understand 'religion' in the literal meaning of the word, as 're-ligio', that is to say the restoration of connections, the restoration of the 'legato' of life. There is no more serious task for music than this."She finds this re-connection through the artistic process and has developed a number of musical symbols to express her ideals. She does it through narrower means of intervallic and rhythmic relationship within the primary material of her works, by seeking to discover the depth and mysticism of the sound, as well as on a larger scale, through the carefully thought architecture of musical form.

Gubaidulina's music is characterised by the use of unusual instrumental combinations. In Erwartung combines percussion (bongos, güiros, temple blocks, cymbals and tam-tams among others) and saxophone quartet.

Melodically, Gubaidulina's is characterized by the frequent use of intense chromatic motives rather than long melodic phrases. She often treats musical space as a means of attaining unity with the divine—a direct line to God—concretely manifest by the lack of striation in pitch space. She achieves this through the use of micro-chromaticism (i.e., quarter tones) and frequent glissandi, exemplifying the lack of "steps" to the divine. This notion is furthered by her extreme dichotomy characterized by chromatic space vs. diatonic space viewed as symbols of darkness vs. light and human/mundane vs. divine/heavenly. Additionally, the use of short motivic segments allows her to create a musical narrative that is seemingly open-ended and disjunct rather than smooth. Finally, another important melodic technique can be seen with her use of harmonics. When talking about her piece Rejoice!, a sonata for violin and cello, Gubaidulina explains, "The possibility for string instruments to derive pitches of various heights at one and the same place on the string can be experienced in music as the transition to another plane of existence. And that is joy." Rejoice! uses harmonics to represent joy as an elevated state of spiritual thought.

Harmonically, Gubaidulina's music resists traditional tonal centers and triadic structures in favor of pitch clusters and intervallic design arising from the contrapuntal interaction between melodic voices. For example, in the Cello Concerto Detto-2 (1972) she notes that a strict and progressive intervallic process occurs, in which the opening section utilizes successively wider intervals that become narrower toward the last section.

Rhythmically, Gubaidulina places significant stress on the fact that temporal ratios, i.e, rhythmic structures, should not be limited to local figuration; rather, the temporality of the musical form should be the defining feature of rhythmic character. As Gerard McBurney states: "In conversation she is most keen to stress that she cannot accept the idea (a frequent post-serial one) of rhythm or duration as the material of a piece. ... To her, rhythm is nowadays a generating principle as, for instance, the cadence was to tonal composers of the Classical period; it therefore cannot be the surface material of a work. ... [S]he expresses her impatience with Messiaen, whose use of rhythmic modes to generate local imagery, she feels, restricts the effectiveness of rhythm as an underlying formal level of the music."

To this end, Gubaidulina often devises durational ratios in order to create the temporal forms for her compositions. Specifically, she often utilizes elements of the Fibonacci sequence or the golden ratio, in which each succeeding element is equal to the sum of the two preceding elements (i.e., 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc.). This numerical layout represents the balanced nature in her music through a sense of cell multiplication between live and non-live substances. She believes that this abstract theory is the foundation of her personal musical expression. The golden ratio between the sections are always marked by some musical event, and the composer explores her fantasy fully in articulating this moment.

The first work in which Gubaidulina experiments with this concept of proportionality is Perceptions for Soprano, Baritone, and Seven String Instruments (1981, rev. 1983–86). The 12th movement, "Montys Tod" (Monty's Death), uses the Fibonacci series in its rhythmical structure with the number of quarter notes in individual episodes corresponding to numbers from the Fibonacci series.

In the early 1980s, she began to use the Fibonacci sequence as a way of structuring the form of the work. Her use of the Fibonacci sequence to determine phrase and rhythm length replaces traditional form, creating a new form which to her is more spiritually in tune. Gubaidulina also experimented with other like series, including the Lucas Series which begins by adding 2 instead of 1 to the initial value; the only thing setting it apart from Fibonacci. These forms are still fluid, as every other movement in her symphony Stimmen... Verstummen... follows the Fibonacci form. "It is a game!", she would claim. Later the Lucas and Evangelist series, sequences derived from that of Fibonacci, were added to her repertoire.

Valentina Kholopova, Gubaidulina's close friend and colleague, outlined the composer's form techniques in detail. In addition to using number sequences, Kholopova describes Gubaidulina's use of "expression parameters"; these being articulation, melody, rhythm, texture, and composition. The name suggests the immediate effects of each parameter on the listener. Each of these exists on a scale of consonance to dissonance, together forming the "parameter complex". For example, she describes a consonant articulation as legato, and a dissonant one as staccato, but each of these can change from piece to piece.

According to Kholopova, music from before the 20th century left the responsibility of articulation to the performer, while now it begs to be more heavily illustrated by the composer. She also cites the writings of Viktor Bobrovski on his research on macrothemes, or central ideas that may occupy larger frames of time, such as entire sections of a piece. With this scale, pieces such as her Concordanza assume a mosaic form held together by Fibonacci-derived groupings of expression parameters, "modulating" between consonance and dissonance. This technique appears most clearly in her Ten Preludes for Solo Cello as six of its movements are names after modulation between parameters, and two being single parameters. Kholopova proposed that this scale could be used to analyze the music of any 20th century composer focused on texture, timbre and color, and that it is but one way to analyze music, signalling a continuing progression, catalyzed, according to Gubaidulina, by Webern.

Piano music
Gubaidulina's entire piano output belongs to her earlier compositional period and consists of the following works: Chaconne (1962), Piano Sonata (1965), Musical Toys (1968), Toccata-Troncata (1971), Invention (1974) and Piano Concerto "Introitus" (1978). Some of the titles reveal her interest in baroque genres and the influence of J. S. Bach.

The Piano Sonata is dedicated to Henrietta Mirvis, a pianist greatly admired by the composer. The work follows the classical formal structure in 3 movements: Allegro (sonata form), Adagio, and Allegretto. Four motives (pitch sets) are utilized throughout the entire sonata, which also constitute the cyclical elements upon which the rhetoric of the piece is constructed. Each motive is given a particular name: "spring", "struggle", "consolation", and "faith".

There are two elements in the primary thematic complex of the first movement: (1) a "swing" theme, characterized by syncopation and dotted rhythms and (2) a chord progression, juxtaposing minor and major seconds over an ostinato pattern in the left hand. The slower secondary theme introduces a melodic element associated with the ostinato element of the previous theme.

In the development section, these sets are explored melodically, while the dotted rhythm figure gains even more importance. In the recapitulation, the chord progression of the first thematic complex is brought to the higher registers, preparing the coda based on secondary theme cantabile element, which gradually broadens.

The second movement shifts to a different expressive world. A simple ternary form with a cadenza–AB (cadenza) A, the B section represents an acoustic departure as the chromatic figurations in the left hand, originating in section A, are muted.

In the cadenza the performer improvises within a framework given by the composer, inviting a deeper exploration of the secrets of sound. It consists of two alternating elements– open-sounding strings, stroke by fingers, with no pitch determination, and muted articulation of the strings in the bass register—separated by rests marked with fermatas.

The third movement is constructed of 7 episodes, in which there is a continuous liberation of energy accumulated during the previous movement.

Two distinct aspects of the sonata—the driving force and the meditative state—can be seen through the architecture of the work as portraying the image of the cross. The first movement is related to the "horizontal" line, which symbolizes human experience while the second movement reflects the "vertical" line, which represents man's striving for full realization in the Divine. The meeting point of these two lines in music happens at the end of the second movement, and that reflects transformation of the human being at crossing these two dimensions. The third movement "celebrates the newly obtained freedom of the spirit".

The Steinway grand piano she has in her home was a gift from Rostropovich.

Awards and recognition

 * Prix de Monaco (1987)
 * Premio Franco Abbiati (1991)
 * Heidelberger Künstlerinnenpreis (1991)
 * Russian State Prize (1992)
 * Koussevitzky International Record Award (in 1989 and 1994)
 * Ludwig-Spohr-Preis der Stadt Braunschweig (1995)
 * Kulturpreis des Kreises Pinneberg (1997)
 * Praemium Imperiale in Japan (1998)
 * Léonie Sonning Music Prize in Denmark (1999)
 * Preis der Stiftung Bibel und Kultur (1999)
 * Goethe-Medaille der Stadt Weimar (2001)
 * Moscow Silenzio-Preis (2001)
 * Polar Music Prize in Sweden (2002)
 * Great Distinguished Service Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2002)
 * Living Composer Prize of the Cannes Classical Awards in 2003
 * Europäischer Kulturpreis (2005)
 * Russian Cultural Prize "Triumph" (2007)
 * Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (2007)
 * Honour Prize of the Moscow Regiment and the International Council of Russian Compatriots "The Compatriot of the Year – 2007".

In 2001 she became honour professor of the Kazan Conservatory. In 2005 she was elected as a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009, she became Dr. honoris causa of Yale University.

In 2011 she was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from the University of Chicago.

On 4 October 2013, Gubaidulina became the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement for the Music section of the Venice Biennale.

She has won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2016) in the contemporary music category. The jury in its citation praised the "outstanding musical and personal qualities" of the Russian composer, and the "spiritual quality" of her work.

On 27 February 2017, Gubaidulina was awarded an honorary doctor of music degree by the New England Conservatory, in Boston.

Her 90th birthday in October 2021 was celebrated by the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig's release of three of her pieces. She was also celebrated in a week of chamber and orchestral music. In November, to mark the occasion, she was selected as Composer of the Week on the long running show of the same name on BBC Radio 3.

Orchestral

 * Fairytale Poem for orchestra (1971)
 * Revue Music for symphony orchestra and jazz band (1976, rev. 1995, 2002)
 * Te Salutant, capriccio for large orchestra (1978)
 * Stimmen... Verstummen... symphony in twelve movements (1986)
 * Pro et Contra for large orchestra (1989)
 * The Unasked Answer (Antwort ohne Frage) collage for three orchestras (1989)
 * Stufen for orchestra and 7 reciters (1992)
 * Figures of Time (Фигуры времени) for large orchestra (1994)
 * The Rider on the White Horse for large orchestra and organ (2002)
 * The Light of the End (Свет конца) for large orchestra (2003)
 * Feast During a Plague for large orchestra (2006)
 * Der Zorn Gottes for orchestra (2020)

Concertante

 * Detto II for cello and ensemble (1972)
 * Concerto for bassoon and low strings (1975)
 * Introitus concerto for piano and chamber orchestra (1978)
 * Offertorium (Жертвоприношение) concerto for violin and orchestra (1980, rev. 1982, 1986)
 * Sieben Worte for cello, bayan, and strings (1982)
 * And: The Feast is in Full Procession (И: Празднество в разгаре) for cello and orchestra (1993)
 * Music for Flute, Strings, and Percussion (1994)
 * Impromptu for flute (flute and alto flute), violin, and strings (1996)
 * Concerto for viola and orchestra (1996)
 * The Canticle of the Sun of St Francis of Assisi for cello, chamber choir and percussion (1997)
 * Two Paths: A Dedication to Mary and Martha for two viola solo and orchestra (1998)
 * Im Schatten des Baumes (В тени под деревом) for koto, bass koto, zheng, and orchestra (1998)
 * Under the Sign of Scorpio variants on six hexachords for bayan and large orchestra (2003)
 * ...The Deceitful Face of Hope and Despair for flute and orchestra (2005)
 * In Tempus Praesens, concerto for violin and orchestra (2007)
 * Glorious Percussion, concerto for percussion and orchestra (2008)
 * Fachwerk, concerto for bayan, percussion and strings (2009)
 * Warum? for flute, clarinet and string orchestra (2014)
 * Concerto for violin, cello and bayan (2017)
 * Dialog: Ich und Du, concerto for violin and orchestra (2018)

Vocal/choral

 * Phacelia, vocal cycle for soprano and orchestra based on Mikhail Prishvin's poem (1956)
 * Night in Memphis, cantata for mezzo-soprano, orchestra and male choir on tape (1968)
 * Rubaijat, cantata for baryton and chamber ensemble (1969)
 * Roses for soprano and piano (1972)
 * Counting Rhymes for voice and piano (1973)
 * Hour of the Soul poem by Marina Tsvetaeva for large wind orchestra and mezzo-soprano/contralto (1974), for percussion, mezzo-soprano, and large orchestra (1976)
 * Laudatio Pacis, oratorio for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, speaker, 3 mixed choirs and large orchestra without strings (1975)
 * Perception for soprano, baritone (speaking voices) and 7 string instruments (1981, rev. 1983, 1986)
 * Hommage à Marina Tsvetayeva for a cappella choir (1984)
 * Letter to the Poetess Rimma Dalo for soprano and cello (1985)
 * Ein Walzerpass nach Johann Strauss for soprano and octet, also arranged for piano and string quintet (1987)
 * Hommage à T.S. Eliot for soprano and octet (1987)
 * Two Songs on German Folk Poetry for (mezzo-)soprano, flute, harpsichord and cello (1988)
 * Jauchzt vor Gott for mixed choir and organ (1989)
 * Alleluja for mixed chorus, boy soprano, organ and large orchestra (1990)
 * Aus dem Stundenbuch on a text of Rainer Maria Rilke for cello, orchestra, male choir, and a woman speaker (1991)
 * Lauda for alto, tenor, baritone, narrator, mixed choir, and large orchestra (1991)
 * Jetzt immer Schnee (Теперь всегда снега) on verses of Gennadi Aigi for chamber ensemble and chamber choir (1993)
 * Ein Engel for contralto and double bass (1994)
 * Aus den Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen for contralto (1994)
 * Galgenlieder à 3 fifteen pieces for mezzo-soprano, percussion, and contrabass (1996)
 * Galgenlieder à 5 fourteen pieces for mezzo-soprano, flute, percussion, bayan, and contrabass (1996)
 * Sonnengesang, St. Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Sun for violoncello, mixed choir and percussion (1997)
 * Johannes-Passion for soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, two mixed choirs, organ, and large orchestra (2000)
 * Johannes-Ostern for soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, two mixed choirs, organ, and large orchestra (2001)
 * O Komm, Heiliger Geist for soprano, bass, mixed choir and orchestra (2015)
 * Über Liebe und Hass for soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, two mixed choirs and orchestra, in 9 movements (2015, rev. 2016) and in 15 movements (2016, rev. 2018)

Solo instrumental

 * Serenade for guitar (1960)
 * Chaconne for piano (1963)
 * Piano Sonata (1965)
 * Toccata for guitar (1969)
 * Musical Toys for piano (1969)
 * Toccata-Troncata for piano (1971)
 * Ten Preludes for cello (1974), also version as Eight Etudes for double bass (2009)
 * Invention for piano (1974)
 * Hell und Dunkel for organ (1976)
 * Sonatina for flute (1978)
 * De Profundis for bayan (1978)
 * Et Exspecto, sonata for bayan (1986)
 * Ritorno perpetuo for harpsichord (1997)
 * Cadenza for bayan (2003, rev. 2011)

Chamber/ensemble

 * Quintet for piano, two violins, viola, and cello (1957)
 * Allegro Rustico for flute and piano (1963)
 * Five Etudes for harp, double bass and percussion (1965)
 * Pantomime for double bass and piano (1966)
 * Musical Toys fourteen piano pieces for children (1969)
 * Vivente – Non Vivente for electronics (1970)
 * Concordanza for chamber ensemble (1971)
 * String Quartet No. 1 (1971)
 * Music for Harpsichord and Percussion Instruments from Mark Pekarsky's Collection (1971, rev. 1973)
 * Rumore e silenzio for percussion and harpsichord (1974)
 * Quattro for two trumpets and two trombones (1974)
 * Sonata for double bass and piano (1975)
 * Two Ballads for two trumpets and piano (1976)
 * Dots, Lines and Zigzag for bass clarinet and piano (1976)
 * Trio for three trumpets (1976)
 * Lied ohne Worte (Songs without words) for trumpet and piano (1977)
 * On Tatar Folk Themes for domra and piano (1977)
 * Duo sonata for two bassoons (1977)
 * Lamento for tuba and piano (1977)
 * Misterioso for 7 percussionists (1977)
 * Quartet for four flutes (1977)
 * Detto I, sonata for organ and percussion (1978)
 * Sounds of the Forest for flute and piano (1978)
 * Two Pieces for horn and piano (1979)
 * In Croce for cello and organ (1979), for bayan and cello (1991)
 * Jubilatio for 4 percussionists (1979)
 * Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten for flute, viola, harp and narrator (1980)
 * Descensio for 3 trombones, 3 percussionists, harp, harpsichord and piano (1981)
 * Rejoice!, sonata for violin and cello (1981)
 * Swan, Crab and Pike, march for brass ensemble and percussion (1982)
 * In the Beginning There was Rhythm for seven percussionists (1984)
 * Quasi hoquetus for viola, bassoon, and piano (1984)
 * String Quartet No. 2 (1987), appears on Short Stories
 * String Quartet No. 3 (1987)
 * String Trio (1988)
 * Ein Walzerpass nach Johann Strauss for piano and string quintet, arranged from version for soprano and octet (1989)
 * Hörst Du uns, Luigi? Schau mal, welchen Tanz eine einfache Holzrassel für Dich vollführt (Слышишь ты нас, Луиджи? Вот танец, который танцует для тебя обыкновенная деревянная трещотка) for six percussionists (1991)
 * Gerade und ungerade (Чет и нечет) for seven percussionists, including cymbalom (1991)
 * Silenzio for bayan, violin, and cello (1991)
 * Tartarische Tanz for bayan and two contrabass (1992)
 * Dancer on a Tightrope (Der Seiltänzer) for violin and string piano (1993)
 * Meditation über den Bach-Choral "Vor deinen Thron tret' ich hiermit" for harpsichord, two violins, viola, cello, and contrabass (1993)
 * ... Early in the Morning, Right before Waking ... for three 17-string Japanese bass kotos and four 13-string Japanese kotos (1993)
 * String Quartet No. 4 (a triple quartet for quartet, two taped quartets and ad libitum colored lights, dedicated to the Kronos Quartet) (1993)
 * In Erwartung (В ожидании) for saxophone quartet and six percussionists (1994)
 * Aus der Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen for alto (1994)
 * Quaternion for cello quartet (1996)
 * Risonanza for three trumpets, four trombones, organ, and six strings (2001)
 * Reflections on the theme B–A–C–H for string quartet (2002)
 * Mirage: The Dancing Sun for eight violoncelli (2002)
 * On the Edge of Abyss for seven violoncelli and two waterphones (2002)
 * Verwandlung (Transformation) for trombone, saxophone quartet, cello, double bass, and tam-tam (2005)
 * The Lyre of Orpheus for violin, percussion, and strings (2006)
 * Ravvedimento for cello and quartet of guitars (2007)
 * Pentimento, an arrangement for double-bass and three guitars (2007)
 * Repentance, an arrangement for cello, double-bass and three guitars (2008)
 * Fantasia on the Theme S–H–E–A for two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart (2008)
 * Sotto voce, for viola, double-bass and two guitars (2010/2013)
 * Labyrinth, for 12 celli (2011)
 * So sei es, for violin, double-bass, piano, and percussion (2013)
 * Pilgrims for violin, double bass, piano and two percussionists (2014)
 * Einfaches Gebet, Low Mass for narrator, two celli, double bass, piano and two percussionists (2016)

Arrangements

 * Le Grand Tango by Astor Piazzolla, for violin and piano (1995)

Film scores (partial list from more than 30 films)
Gubaidulina considers the following four works the most important in this genre:
 * The Circus Tent by Ideya Garanina (1981)
 * Veliki Samoyed by Arkadi Kordon (1981)
 * The University Chair by Ivan Kiasashvili (1982)
 * The Scarecrow by Rolan Bykov (1984)

Other works include:
 * Adventures of Mowgli (1967–1971)
 * The Kreutzer Sonata (1987)
 * The Cat Who Walked by Herself (1988)
 * Mary Queen Of Scots (2013)

A more complete list of her scores for animated films may be found on her profile at Animator.ru.

Discography

 * Solo Piano Works (1994: Sony SK 53960). "Chaconne" (1962), "Sonata" (1965) and "Musical Toys" (1968), performed by Andreas Haefliger, and "Introitus": Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1978), Andreas Haefliger with the NDR Radiophilharmonie conducted by Bernhard Klee.
 * The Canticle of the Sun (1997) and Music for Flute, Strings, and Percussion (1994). The first performed by cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and London Voices conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri, the second by flutist Emmanuel Pahud and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rostropovich. Gubaidulina attended the recording of both pieces.
 * Johannes-Passion (2000). Performed by Natalia Korneva, soprano; Viktor Lutsiuk, tenor; Fedor Mozhaev, baritone; Genady Bezzubenkov, bass; Saint Petersburg Chamber Choir (dir. Nikolai Kornev); Choir of the Mariinsky Theatre Saint Petersburg (dir. Andrei Petrenko); Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra Saint Petersburg conducted by Valery Gergiev. World premiere recorded live at the European Music Festival in Stuttgart, September 9, 2000.

title: Sofia Gubaidulina


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Sacrament (LDS Church)

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, most often simply referred to as the sacrament, is the ordinance in which participants eat bread and drink water in remembrance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Normally, the sacrament is provided every Sunday as part of the sacrament meeting, the primary weekly worship service, in each LDS Church congregation.

Latter-day Saint adherents regard partaking of the sacrament to be a commandment of Jesus Christ; participating in it demonstrates a willingness to remember the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Administration of the sacrament to the congregation
In LDS sacrament meetings, the sacrament is passed to members of the congregation after being blessed by a priest from the Aaronic priesthood or a member of the Melchizedek priesthood. The sacrament table is prepared before the meeting begins, usually by teachers, by placing whole slices of bread on trays and filling small individual water cups, which are also held in trays. Both bread and water trays are then covered with white cloth. After introductory prayers, administrative business, and announcements, the sacrament portion of the service begins. It is customary for the congregation to sing a hymn while the bread is uncovered and prepared. The congregation remains seated while the priesthood representatives stand and break bread into bite-sized pieces. The breaking of the bread represents the broken body of Christ. After breaking the bread and the conclusion of the hymn, the priesthood holder kneels and says a set prayer on the broken bread. The bread is passed to the congregation by priesthood holders, usually by deacons. The prayer on the bread is found in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants:

 * "O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it; that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he has given them, that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen." (Book of Moroni 4:3, Doctrine and Covenants 20:77).

After the bread is passed to the congregation, the bread trays are placed on the table and covered with the white cloth. The water trays are then uncovered and a set prayer is given on the water, which is then passed to the congregation. The prayer on the water indicates that the water represents the shed blood of Christ:

 * "O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee, in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this [water] to the souls of all those who drink of it, that they may do it in remembrance of the blood of thy Son, which was shed for them; that they may witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they do always remember him, that they may have his Spirit to be with them. Amen." (Book of Moroni 5:2, Doctrine and Covenants 20:79).

After the water is passed to the congregation, the water trays are covered with the bread trays for the remainder of the service. The leftover bread and water are discarded.

Latter-day Saints believe the bread and water to be symbols, not the actual body and blood of Christ, and that it is meant for those who have been baptized to "renew their baptismal covenants," although any person of any or no faith is permitted to partake, and it is common for children under the minimum baptismal age to partake as well.

Changes in sacrament administration
Weekly administration of the sacrament in the LDS Church did not begin until the 1850s.

Until the late 1890s or early-20th century, the entire congregation often kneeled during the sacramental prayers, but current practice requires that only the individual giving the prayer kneel. Deacons and teachers did not originally take part in the preparing or passing of the sacrament, a practice which was first adopted in 1898 and was widely implemented in the 1920s or 1930s.

Individual water cups, instead of drinking from a common cup, were introduced in 1911 in response to the Spanish flu.

Passing the sacrament first to the presiding church authority was emphasized in 1946.

Temporary adjustments

 * Occasionally, a lack of access to bread will result in the use of food other than bread in the sacrament. For instance, after the Second World War, members in Switzerland, under heavy food rationing, "were so anxious to partake of the sacrament that they purchased some potato peelings which cost fifty dollars and used these in place of bread."
 * On March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders of the church announced a temporary suspension of all large meetings for members of the church worldwide, including weekly sacrament meetings. Among the instructions given during this period of time was the directive that the bishops of each congregation ensure that those over whom they have stewardship receive the sacrament at least once a month during this period of time.

Meaning of the sacrament
The sacrament is viewed by adherents as a renewal of a member's covenant made at baptism. According to the sacramental prayers, a person eats and drinks in remembrance of the body and blood of Jesus, promises to always remember him, take his name upon them, and keephis commandments. In return, the prayer promises that the participant will always have his spirit to be with them.

The sacrament is considered the most sacred and important element of normal Sabbath day observance and as such is approached by Latter-day Saints with reverence and in a spirit of penitence. Consequently, all who partake of the sacrament are encouraged to examine their own consciences and prayerfully gauge their own worthiness to do so. If they feel unworthy, they are encouraged to refrain from participating in the sacrament until they have properly repented of their sins. Partaking of the sacrament by non-members and unbaptized members is permissible (except in cases where the person has been excommunicated by the church), but the unbaptized are regarded as not having part of the covenant associated with the sacrament.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Sacrament (LDS Church)


text:
Annea Lockwood

Annea Lockwood (born July 29, 1939, in Christchurch, New Zealand) is a New Zealand-born American composer and academic musician. She taught electronic music at Vassar College. Her range is vast and often includes microtonal, electro-acoustic soundscapes and vocal music, as well as recordings of natural found sounds. She has also recorded Fluxus-inspired pieces involving burning or drowning pianos.

Early life and education
Lockwood studied composition and completed a Bachelor of Music with honours from the University of Canterbury. Her composition studies continued with Peter Racine Fricker at the Royal College of Music from 1961 to 1963; with Gottfried Michael Koenig at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse from 1963 to 1964; and at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. She also studied in the Netherlands. Lockwood settled in London in 1964.

Career and style
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lockwood performed and composed around Europe. Her compositions featured non-conventional instruments such as glass tubing used in The Glass Concert (1967). This was published in Source: Music of the Avant Garde then recorded and released by Tangent Records. Her series Piano Transplants utilized burning, drowning, or planting pianos in locations across the United Kingdom and United States. In the 1970s, Lockwood began to compose music that could be classified as performance art pieces, as the essence of the compositional ideas made the audience and environment agents in one piece. She collaborated with various choreographers, sound poets, and visual artists.

In 1973, Lockwood relocated to New York City after being offered a faculty role at Hunter College. She worked with environmental sounds, capturing them and building developed compositions around an environmental inspiration, as in A Sound Map of the Hudson River (1982) and World Rhythms (1975). She also built on the archetypes and conversations with significant people, as in Conversations with the Ancestors (1979), composed on conversations with four women in their 80s; and Delta Run (1982) based on a conversation with sculptor Walter Wincha. Three Short Stories and Apotheosis (1985) used what Lockwood named the Soundball, which was a foam-covered ball made of six small speakers and a radio receiver. The impetus for this unusual piece of equipment was to "put sound into the hands of the dancers." She also works with the sounds of water.

In the 1990s, her pieces were written for acoustic-electric instruments and incorporated multi-media and indigenous instruments. Thousand Year Dreaming (1991) used four didgeridoos and blends images of the Lascaux Cave as part of the performance. In 2002, she began working on A Sound Map of the Danube River, which gathered sounds recorded from a variety of sites on the surface of, within, and around the river.

Lockwood's work has been presented at festivals around the world. Her piece Piano Burning has been replicated multiple times, including as the closing track of the 2019 album There Existed An Addiction To Blood by the experimental hip-hop group clipping. She has received the Henry Cowell Award (2007) and was featured in the short documentary Annea Lockwood / a Film About Listening (2021) and live documentary 32 Sounds (2022), both directed by Sam Green. Her recordings are currently distributed by Lovely, XI, ?What Next?/OO Discs, Rattle Records (NZ), Harmonia Mundi, Earth Ear, CRI, and Finnadar/Atlantic.

Lockwood is an emeritus professor at Vassar College, where she has worked since 1982. Former students include Jonathan Elliott.

Discography

 * 1970: The Glass World of Anna Lockwood
 * 1977: Tiger Balm Opus One Records 70
 * 1977: Women in Electronic Music: New Music for Electronic & Recorded Media
 * 1989: A Sound Map of the Hudson River, Lovely Music, Ltd. CD 2081
 * 1990: Nautilus on The Aerial: Issue #2
 * 1991: Night and Fog on Full Spectrum Voice, Lovely Music, Ltd. CD 3021; features Thomas Buckner, baritone
 * 1991: Red Mesa Opus One Records 00152; features Loretta Goldberg, keyboards
 * 1993: Thousand Year Dreaming, Nonsequitur/?What Next? WN 0010 & O.O. Discs 0041
 * 1994: The Angle of Repose (on Sign of the Times), Lovely Music, Ltd. CD 3022; features Thomas Buckner, baritone
 * 1994: Sign Of The Times
 * 1996: Ear-Walking Woman
 * 1997: The Glass World, Nonsequitur/?What Next? WN 0021 & O.O. Discs
 * 1998: World Rhythms (on Sinopah), Experimental Intermedia XI 118; includes Ruth Anderson's I Come Out of Your Sleep
 * 1999: Breaking the Surface, Lovely Music, Ltd. CD 2082
 * 2003: 60x60, Capstone Records CPS-8744
 * 2007: Thousand Year Dreaming/Floating World, Pogus 21045–2

Reviews and articles

 * 1995, May 23: MUSIC REVIEW; Bang on a Can Uptown Cultivates Crossover by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
 * 1989, December 10: Review/Music; Electronic Components In Work by 3 Composers by John Rockwell, The New York Times
 * 1993, April 20: Classical Music in Review by Bernard Holland, The New York Times
 * 2000, January 9: It's Sound, It's Art, and Some Call It Music by Kyle Gann, The New York Times
 * 2000, July 9: MUSIC; Electronic Music, Always Current by Kyle Gann, The New York Times
 * 2001, January 18: Art From a River's Past (and Its Present) by Dinitia Smith, The New York Times
 * 2003, March 9: ENVIRONMENT; Inside, An Echo Of a River by James Gorman, The New York Times
 * 2004, October 16: MUSIC REVIEW | SOUNDS LIKE NOW, A 'Bring Your Own Improvisation' Party by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
 * 2019, November 8: MUSIC; Burning Pianos and Whispering Rivers: A Composer’s Journey by Kerry O'Brien, The New York Times
 * 2023, May 12: Ruth Anderson / Annea Lockwood: Tête-à-tête album review by James Minsoo Kim, Pitchfork

title: Annea Lockwood


text: User talk:Alan De Smet

title: User talk:Alan De Smet


text:
National trade union center

A national trade union center (or national center or central) is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. In some regions, such as the Nordic countries, different centers exist on a sectoral basis, for example, for blue collar workers and professionals.

Among the larger national centers in the world are the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Strategic Organizing Center in the US; the Canadian Labour Congress; the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Britain; the Irish Congress of Trade Unions; the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU); the Congress of South African Trade Unions; the Dutch FNV; the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish LO; the German DGB; the French CGT and CFDT; the Indian BMS, INTUC, AITUC and HMS; the Italian CISL, CGIL and UIL; the Spanish CCOO, CNT, CGT and USO; the Czech ČMKOS; the Japan Trade Union Confederation RENGO; the Argentinian CGT and CTA; the Brazilian CUT; the Armenian CTUA, and so on.

Many national trade union centers are now members of the International Trade Union Confederation, although some belong to the World Federation of Trade Unions.

title: National trade union center


text:
Glinda of Oz

Glinda of Oz is the fourteenth book in the Oz series written by children's author L. Frank Baum, published on July 10, 1920. It is the last book of the original Oz series, which was later continued by other authors. Like most of the Oz books, the plot features a journey through some of the remoter regions of Oz; though in this case the pattern is doubled: Dorothy and Ozma travel to stop a war between the Flatheads and Skeezers, and then Glinda and a cohort of Dorothy's friends set out to rescue them. The book was dedicated to Baum's second son, Robert Stanton Baum. It was followed by The Royal Book of Oz (1920).

Plot
Princess Ozma and Dorothy travel to an obscure corner of the Land of Oz to prevent a war between two local powers, the Skeezers and the Flatheads. The leaders of the two tribes prove obstinate, and they are determined to fight in spite of Ozma and Dorothy. Unable to prevent the war, Dorothy and Ozma find themselves imprisoned on the Skeezers' glass-covered island, which has been magically submerged to the bottom of its lake. Their situation worsens when the warlike queen Coo-ee-oh, who is holding them captive and who alone knows how to raise the island back to the surface of the lake, loses her battle and gets transformed into a swan, forgetting all her magic in the process and leaving the inhabitants of the island, with Ozma and Dorothy, trapped at the bottom of the lake. Ozma and Dorothy summon Glinda, who, with help from several magicians and magical assistants, must find a way to raise the island to the surface of the lake again and liberate its inhabitants.

Original manuscript
The printed text of the book features one significant change from Baum's manuscript. In the manuscript, Red Reera first appears as a skeleton, its bones wired together, with glowing red eyes in the sockets of its skull. The printed text makes Reera the Red first appear as a gray ape in an apron and lace cap — a comical sight rather than a frightening and disturbing specter. The change was most likely made by Baum at the suggestion of his editors. Other changes in the manuscript, made by an unknown editor at Reilly & Lee, are relatively trivial, and it has been suggested that they do not always improve the text.

The submerged city of the Skeezers in this book may have been suggested to Baum by the semi-submerged Temple of Isis at Philae in Egypt, which the Baums had seen on their trip to Europe and Egypt in the first six months of 1906.

title: Glinda of Oz


text:
Mihrab

Mihrab (محراب, miḥrāb, pl. محاريب maḥārīb) is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a mihrab appears is thus the "qibla wall".

The minbar, which is the raised platform from which an imam (leader of prayer) addresses the congregation, is located to the right of the mihrab.

Etymology
The origin of the word miḥrāb is complicated and multiple explanations have been proposed by different sources and scholars. It may come from Old South Arabian (possibly Sabaic) 𐩣𐩢𐩧𐩨 mḥrb meaning a certain part of a palace, as well as "part of a temple where 𐩩𐩢𐩧𐩨 tḥrb (a certain type of visions) is obtained," from the root word 𐩢𐩧𐩨 ḥrb "to perform a certain religious ritual (which is compared to combat or fighting and described as an overnight retreat) in the 𐩣𐩢𐩧𐩨 mḥrb of the temple." It may also possibly be related to Ethiopic ምኵራብ məkʷrab "temple, sanctuary," whose equivalent in Sabaic is 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 mkrb of the same meaning, from the root word 𐩫𐩧𐩨 krb "to dedicate" (cognate with Akkadian 𒅗𒊒𒁍 karābu "to bless" and related to Hebrew כְּרוּב kerūḇ "cherub (either of the heavenly creatures that bound the Ark in the inner sanctuary)").

Arab lexicographers traditionally derive the word from the Arabic root ح ر ب (Ḥ-R-B) relating to "war, fighting or anger," (which, though cognate with the South Arabian root, does not however carry any relation to religious rituals) thus leading some to interpret it to mean a "fortress", or "place of battle (with Satan)," the latter due to mihrabs being private prayer chambers. The latter interpretation though bears similarity to the nature of the 𐩢𐩧𐩨 ḥrb ritual.

The word mihrab originally had a non-religious meaning and simply denoted a special room in a house; a throne room in a palace, for example. The Fath al-Bari (p. 458), on the authority of others, suggests the mihrab is "the most honorable location of kings" and "the master of locations, the front and the most honorable." The Mosques in Islam (p. 13), in addition to Arabic sources, cites Theodor Nöldeke and others as having considered a mihrab to have originally signified a throne room.

The term was subsequently used by the Islamic prophet Muhammad to denote his own private prayer room. The room additionally provided access to the adjacent mosque, and Muhammad entered the mosque through this room. This original meaning of mihrab – i.e. as a special room in the house – continues to be preserved in some forms of Judaism where mihrabs are rooms used for private worship. In the Qur'an, the word (when in conjunction with the definite article) is mostly used to indicate the Holy of Holies. The term is used, for example, in the verse.

History
The earliest mihrabs generally consisted of a simple stripe of paint or a flat stone panel in the qibla wall. They may have originally had functions similar to a maqsura, denoting not only the place where the imam led prayers but also where some official functions, such as the dispensation of justice, were carried out. In the Mosque of the Prophet (Al-Masjid al-Nabawi) in Medina, a large block of stone initially marked the north wall which was oriented towards Jerusalem (the first qibla), but this was moved to the south wall in the second year of the hijra period (2 AH or 624 CE), when the orientation of the qibla was changed towards Mecca. This mihrab also marked the spot where Muhammad would plant his lance ( 'anaza or ḥarba) prior to leading prayers.

During the reign of the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik (Al-Walid I, r. 705–715), the Mosque of the Prophet was renovated and the governor (wāli) of Medina, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, ordered that a niche be made to designate the qibla wall (which identifies the direction of Mecca), which became the first concave mihrab niche. This type of mihrab was called miḥrāb mujawwaf in historical Arabic texts''. '' The origin of this architectural feature has been debated by scholars. Some trace it to the apse of Christian churches, others to the alcove shrines or niches of Buddhist architecture.   Niches were already a common feature of Late Antique architecture prior to the rise of Islam, either as hollow spaces or to house statues. The mihrab niche could have also been related to the recessed area or alcove that sheltered the throne in some royal audience halls.

The next earliest concave mihrab to be documented is the one that was added to the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus when it was built by Al-Walid between 706 and 715. This was then followed by a mihrab added to the Mosque of 'Amr ibn al-'As in Fustat in 710–711. Subsequently, concave mihrabs became widespread across the Muslim world and were adopted as a standard feature of mosques. The oldest surviving concave mihrab today is a marble mihrab housed at the Iraq Museum. It is believed to date from the 8th century, possibly made in northern Syria before being moved by the Abbasids to the Great Mosque of al-Mansur in Baghdad. It was then moved again to the al-Khassaki Mosque built in the 17th century, where it was later found and transferred to the museum. This mihrab features a combination of Classical or Late Antique motifs, with the niche flanked by two spiral columns and crowned by a scalloped shell-like hood. Eventually, the niche came to be universally understood to identify the qibla wall, and so came to be adopted as a feature in other mosques. A sign was no longer necessary. Today, mihrabs vary in size, but are usually ornately decorated. It was common for mihrabs to be flanked with pairs of candlesticks, though they would not have lit candles. In Ottoman mosques, these were made of brass, bronze or beaten copper and their bases had a distinctive bell shape.

In exceptional cases, the mihrab does not follow the qibla direction, such as is the Masjid al-Qiblatayn, or the Mosque of the Two Qiblas, where Muhammad received the command to change the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca, thus it had two prayer niches. In 1987 the mosque was renovated, the old prayer niche facing Jerusalem was removed, and the one facing Mecca was left.

Architecture
Mihrabs are a relevant part of Islamic culture and mosques. Since they are used to indicate the direction for prayer, they serve as an important focal point in the mosque. They are usually decorated with ornamental detail that can be geometric designs, linear patterns, or calligraphy. This ornamentation also serves a religious purpose. The calligraphy decoration on the mihrabs are usually from the Qur'an and are devotions to God so that God's word reaches the people. Common designs amongst mihrabs are geometric foliage that are close together so that there is no empty space in-between the art.

Great Mosque of Córdoba
The mihrab in the Great Mosque of Cordoba is a highly decorated piece of art that draws one's attention. It is a contribution made by Al-Hakam II that is not just used for prayer. It is used as a place of convergence in the mosque, where visitors could be amazed by its beauty and gilded designs. The entrance is covered in mosaics "which links to the Byzantium tradition, produced by the craftsmen sent by Emperor Nicephorus II. These mosaics extend along the voussoirs with a geometric and plant-based design, but also in the inscriptions which record verses from the Koran". This mihrab is also a bit different from a normal mihrab due to its scale. It takes up a whole room instead of just a niche. This style of mihrab set a standard for other mihrab construction in the region. The use of the horseshoe arch, carved stucco, and glass mosaics made an impression for the aesthetic of mihrabs, "although no other extant mihrab in Spain or western North Africa is as elaborate."

Great Mosque of Damascus
The Great Mosque of Damascus was started by al-Walid in 706. It was built as a hypostyle mosque, built with a prayer hall leading to the mihrab, "on the back wall of the sanctuary are four mihrabs, two of which are the mihrab of the Companions of the Prophet in the eastern half and the great mihrab at the end of the transept". The mihrab is decorated similarly to the rest of the mosque in golden vines and vegetal imagery. The lamp that once hung in the mihrab has been theorized as the motif of a pearl, due to the indications that dome of the mihrab has scalloped edges. There have been other mosques that have mihrabs similar to this that follow the same theme, with scalloped domes that are "concave like a conch or mother of pearl shell. The original main mihrab of the mosque has not been preserved, having been renovated many times, and the current one is a replacement dating from renovations after a destructive 1893 fire.

title: Mihrab


text:
Joan La Barbara

Joan Linda La Barbara (born June 8, 1947) is an American vocalist and composer known for her explorations of non-conventional or "extended" vocal techniques. Considered to be a vocal virtuoso in the field of contemporary music, she is credited with advancing a new vocabulary of vocal sounds including trills, whispers, cries, sighs, inhaled tones, and multiphonics (singing two or more pitches simultaneously).

Biography
An influential figure in experimental music, La Barbara was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a classically trained singer who studied with soprano Helen Boatwright at Syracuse University and contralto Marion Freschl at the Juilliard School in New York.

Joan La Barbara's early creative work (early to mid 1970s) focuses on experimentation and investigation of vocal sound as raw sonic material including works that explore varied timbres on a single pitch, circular breathing techniques inspired by horn players, and multiphonic or chordal singing. In the mid 1970s, she began creating more structured compositional works, some of which include electronics and layered voice sounds.

She has accumulated a large repertoire of vocal works by 20th- and 21st-century music masters, including many pieces composed especially for her voice. She has performed and recorded works by composers including John Cage, Robert Ashley, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, Larry Austin, Peter Gordon, Alvin Lucier, and her husband Morton Subotnick, and has collaborated with choreographer Merce Cunningham, and poet Kenneth Goldsmith. She also received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (2016).

La Barbara is a guest instructor at HB Studio.

Other work
Joan La Barbara has also done work acting and composing for television, film, and dance. She composed and performed the music for the Sesame Street animated segment Signing Alphabet, for electronics and voice, and has composed a variety of chamber, orchestral, and choral works. She also appears in Matthew Barney’s 2014 film River of Fundament. La Barbara is currently on the music composition artist faculty at New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, and on the faculty of Mannes/The New School/College of Performing Arts.

La Barbara works

 * Voice Is the Original Instrument (2016). Arc Light Editions, vinyl release, ALE005.
 * io: atmos (2009) New World Records, CD 80665
 * Voice Is the Original Instrument: Early Works (2003). Lovely Music, CD 3003.
 * Awakenings, for chamber ensemble (1994) Music & Arts, CD 830
 * Shamansong (1998) New World Records, CD 8054
 * 73 Poems (1994) book and CD with Kenneth Goldsmith, Lovely Music, Ltd., CD 3002
 * "Computer Music Series, Vol.13, The Virtuoso in the Computer Age III", l'albero dalle foglie azzurre (tree of blue leaves), for solo oboe and computer music on tape (1993) Centaur Records, CRC 2166
 * Sound Paintings (1991) Lovely Music, Ltd., CD 3001
 * Silent Scroll on Newband Plays Microtonal Works, (1990) Mode Records, #18
 * The Art of Joan La Barbara (1985) Nonesuch, LP 78029-1
 * As Lightning Comes, In Flashes (1983) Wizard Records, LP RVW 2283
 * The Reluctant Gypsy (1980) Wizard Records, RVW 2279
 * Tapesongs (1978) Chiaroscuro, LP CR-196
 * Voice Is the Original Instrument: Early Works (1976) Wizard Records, LP 2266

Featured on works by other composers

 * Johann Johannsson Arrival (Original Soundtrack) (2016) Deutsche Grammophon, CD
 * Robert Ashley Now Eleanor's Idea (2007) Lovely Music, Ltd., CD 1009
 * Robert Ashley Celestial Excursions (2004) Lovely Music, Ltd., CD 1007
 * Robert Ashley Dust (2000) Lovely Music, Ltd., CD 1006
 * Robert Ashley Your Money My Life Goodbye (1999) Lovely Music, Ltd., 1005
 * John Cage John Cage at Summerstage with Joan La Barbara, William Winant and Leonard Stein (1995), Music & Arts, CD 875
 * Larry Austin La Barbara on  CDCM Computer Music Series, Vol. 13, The Virtuoso in the Computer Age III (1993) Centaur Records, CRC 2166
 * Morton Subotnick All my hummingbirds have alibis (1993) The Voyager Company, CD-Rom LS36
 * Charles Dodge The Waves on "Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental" (1992) New Albion, NA 045
 * Robert Ashley Improvement (1992) Elektra/Nonesuch, double CD 79289-2
 * Steve Reich Voices and Organ (1991) Deutsche Grammaphon, CD box
 * John Cage Joan La Barbara Singing Through John Cage (1990) New Albion, NA035
 * Philip Glass Music in 12 Parts (1990) Virgin Records
 * Morton Feldman Three Voices for Joan La Barbara (1989) New Albion, NA018
 * Morton Subotnick Jacob's Room (1987) Wergo, WER2014-50
 * Morton Subotnick The Last Dream of the Beast on "The Art of Joan La Barbara", Nonesuch 78029–1, 1985, LP only
 * John Cage Solo for voice 45 (1978) Chiaroscuro, LP CR-196, 1978
 * Lou Harrison May Rain on "Prepared Piano--the First of Four Decades" with Richard Bunger, piano, Musical Heritage Society, LP MHS-4187
 * Bruce Ditmas Aeray Dust (1978) Chiaroscuro, CR-195
 * Bruce Ditmas  Yellow (1977) Wizard Records, LP #222, 1977, LP
 * Philip Glass North Star (1977) Virgin Records, PZ-34669
 * Philip Glass Music in 12 Parts (Parts 1 & 2) (1974) Virgin Records, LP
 * Steve Reich Voices and Organ (1974) Deutsche Grammaphon, LP box
 * Garrett List Your Own Self (1973) Opus One Records, LP
 * Jim Hall Commitment (A&M/Horizon, 1976) on "Lament for a Fallen Matador (Based on "Adagio in G minor)", arr. by Don Sebesky
 * Stanley Silverman and Richard Foreman Dr. Selavy's Magic Theatre (1973) Rainbow Collection records, LP
 * The Living Theatre with Wavy Gravy (Hugh Romney) and The New Wilderness Preservation Band (1973)
 * Don Sebesky The Rape of El Morro (1973) CTI Records LP

title: Joan La Barbara