**Sigma Alpha Iota Friend of the Arts
Biography
Dr. Sondra Clark is a graduate of The Juilliard School in New York City; San Jose State University, where she received a Master's Degree and an Outstanding Music Student Award; and Stanford University, where she completed her Ph.D. on an Ella Moore Shiels Fellowship for Academic Excellence. Further studies have included courses at Queens College in New York City and the Academy of Music in Vienna, Austria, University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California. Her composition teachers have included Vincent Persichetti, Norman Lloyd, Hall Overton, Leland Smith, Leonard Ratner, and George Perle. She has participated in master classes and seminars with Darius Milhaud, Lou Harrison, Dane Rudhyar, Aaron Copland, John Cage, and Gyorgy Ligeti.
Dr. Clark was a member of the San Jose State University Music Faculty for twelve years, during which her teaching assignments including music theory, music history, advanced piano, and keyboard harmony. For eight years, she served in the Graduate Department as a Master's Thesis Advisor, teaching graduate music history, bibliography, musicology, and thesis writing. She has also had guest lectureships at several California colleges, The Juilliard School, and Stanford University. A private music teacher for forty years, Clark composed and published "Piano Pleasure," an accelerated method which is used in schools and other teaching studios. She also has numerous prize-winning pupils in piano and composition to her credit.
A frequently requested clinician and lecturer, Clark was chosen to lecture on composing at the 1994 State Convention of the California Music Teachers, where her guide for beginning composers, "The Joy of Creating Music," was a featured work. Her newest prize-winning work will be published by the Neil A. Kjos Co. and premiered in April, 1998, at the Music Teachers National Convention in Nashville, TN, by the famed piano duo, Weekley and Arganbright.
Sondra Clark is an internationally recognized specialist on the music of Charles Ives, and she has produced and performed in many concerts featuring her own works as well as those of other twentieth-century American composers. A long-time music critic for San Francisco Bay Area newspapers, her syndicated by-lines have appeared throughout Northern California, and her writing posts have included music editor of the Oakland Tribune and contributor to the San Francisco Examiner, American Heritage, Clavier, and The Musical Quarterly. During 1973 and 1974, she was annotator for the San Jose Symphony in San Jose, CA. She has written six books, a screenplay, and a software manual.
Since retiring a few years ago from university teaching and music criticism, Sondra Clark has devoted herself to composing full time, and since 1990, nine of her compositions have won awards. For five years she has won First Prize in the California State Composers Today Competition. She is now an active member of the National Association for Composers and ASCAP. Her works are performed internationally and have received unanimously enthusiastic response: Phillip George (reviewer for Twentieth Century Music) described Clark's "Three AmericanScenes" as "neo-Copland" and "toe-tapping, rousing, and very catchy." Richard Freed (reviewer for Stereo Review) called "Seasons of Love" for piano trio and soprano "powerful, effective stuff -- so beautifully judged in its proportions, without a single, superfluous gesture, and no hint of excess in the handling of emotion."
Clark's critically acclaimed "Requiem for Lost Children," written for the Kevin Collins Foundation for Missing Children, was premiered in November, 1996, in San Jose, CA and in Los Altos, CA by the San Jose Symphonic Choir and Orchestra. Scored for three soloists, mixedchoir, children's choir, and orchestra, the work was described by Paul Hertelendy (reviewer for San Jose Mercury News) as "a deeply stirring ... powerful amalgam of the old and the new, as revolutionary in its approach as the requierns of Johannes Brahms and Benjamin Britten were in their days." In October, 1996, Foothill College in Mountain View, CA produced a television video on Clark and her music, to air on public television stations. She is currently working with multiple grants on her next extended project, an opera for television that will incorporate musical elements from her Native American heritage.
Of California Mission Indian descent, Sondra Clark grew up on government Indian Schools in the Dakotas. After a move to Wisconsin in her early teens, her musical talent was recognized, and she began winning awards for her piano performances and playing in concerts and on television throughout the Midwest. At the age of fourteen, she was producing and performing her own weekly radio show. As a high school freshman, she published her first article and won a state essay contest. Based on her 10 scores and overall academic achievement, her high school faculty recommended allowing her to skip a grade and graduate early.
Sondra Clark lives in Los Altos, CA with her husband of thirty-seven years, Gordon Clark, a retired computer specialist. Her brother is Fritz Scholder, a noted Indian artist.
Contact Information
497 Lassen Street
Los Altos, CA 94022
E-mail: Donson42@aol.com
Annual Updates
2009
The composer writes, “I think I also said this last year, but so far, 2008 has been my busiest year to date. Although it might not seem so by my following listing of premieres, my current musical passion has become piano ensemble music, mainly because of my involvement in the newly formed Kurosawa Piano Music Foundation, which has presented four concerts and a Silicon Valley Duo Piano Festival, since January 2008.”
PREMIERES
That Time of Year, for soprano, violin and piano, received its premiere November 2007 at a National Association of Composers concert, Palo Alto (CA) Arts Center. The commissioned work Still Waters for viola and piano was introduced in February 2008 at Boston (MA) University, and then given a West Coast premiere by violist Noriko Iwamoto and pianist Chin Beckmann at a Providence Day concert in September, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA. The South Brass Ensemble presented Scenes from New Orleans, for brass ensemble, in June, Palo Alto (CA) Arts Center.
PERFORMANCES
The Clark-Rocklin Piano Duo presented Three American Scenes, Florida Fantasy Suite, and Waterfalls in October 2007 for the San Francisco Peninsula Sigma Alpha Iota Alumnae Chapter Musicale, Portola Valley, CA; the program was repeated in November for the East Bay Alumnae Chapter Musicale in Alamo, CA. Also in November, Three Sierras Scenes for piano trio was presented in the Fortnightly Music Club’s Centennial Concert at the Palo Alto Arts Center. James Welch and Paul Rosas performed Three Northern California Landscapes for organ and piano in February 2008, United Methodist Church, Los Altos, CA. Three Odd Meters and Key Lime Sunset were performed in a Kurosawa Foundation Duo Piano Concert at Tateuchi Hall in Mountain View, CA in May and July, while Three Odd Meters and Angel Falls were performed in various concerts, including a master class devoted to the composer’s music, at the July 2008 Silicon Valley Duo Piano Festival, and at Le Petit Trianon in San Jose, CA.
PUBLICATIONS
Angel Falls, piano four-hands; Hal Leonard Corp.
RECORDINGS
Homage to George Gershwin for orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic; ERM Media.
2008
Sondra Clark writes, “At the beginning of 2007, I seemed to hit the ground running, and I’ve been so busy with merry music-making. I’m increasingly convinced that being a composer is the most delightful job in the world!” Sondra Clark won first prize in the Pedagogy Division of the 2007 Music Teachers of California (MTAC) Composers Today Contest for Three Sierras Scenes for piano trio, and first prize in the Advanced Professional Division for Angel Falls, Venezuela for piano four-hands; the latter work will be published by Hal Leonard. That Time of Year, commissioned by New Music New York for its “21st Century Shakespeare Festival,”
was premiered in May by tenor William George and pianist Andrew Pau at St. Peter’s Church, New York, NY.
Premieres
The Clark-Rocklin Duo introduced Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite in February 2007 for the Gourmet Concert Series at Crestmont Hall in San Mateo, CA. Also in February, the Alvarado Duo premiered South American Dances, arranged for two pianos,
at the University of California-Santa Cruz Recital Hall.
Performances
At a workshop in February for the 2007 California Association of Professional Music Teachers (CAPMT) Conference in San Mateo, CA, the Clark-Rocklin Piano Duo presented Three American Scenes, Summer Lake, Three Odd Meters, Dakota Days, Island Delights, South American Dances, and Waterfalls; this program was repeated in several other venues throughout March and April. Three Scenes from New Orleans and Muir Woods, for two pianos, were performed in May by the Shepherd-White Duo at the Sebastopol (CA) Performing Arts Center. The San Jose Symphonic Choir gave the west coast premiere of Benediction at the Palo Alto (CA) Arts Center, in June. Three Sierras Scenes, for piano trio, and Angel Falls were performed in the Composers Today Winners’ Recital at the MTAC Annual Convention, Santa Clara, CA. Pentatempo Waltz, 3 + 3 + 4, Miami Mambo, Brasilia Beguine, and Angel Falls were performed in various concerts, and in a master class devoted to Clark’s music, as part of the July 2007 San Francisco (CA) International Music Festival.
Publications
Island Delights, suite for piano; Hal Leonard.
2007
Sondra Clark writes: “This was my year for writing and premiering homages – nine in all! It’s also been my year for working with strings and having the joy of not one, but two premieres played by the superb Ives Quartet.”
Premieres
The Clark-Rocklin Piano Duo presented Angel Falls, Venezuela at a Crestmont Conservatory Series concert in San Mateo, CA in February 2006. Celebrating the Muse: Seven Homages to American Composers for String Quartet, commissioned by Robert and Sue Larson for the opening of Tateuchi Hall at Finn Center in Mountain View, CA, was introduced by the Ives Quartet in April 2006. The Ives Quartet also performed the June premiere of South American Scenes in a National Association of Composers, USA series concert at the Palo Alto (CA) Arts Center. The Kiev Philharmonic both premiered and recorded Homage to George Gershwin for orchestra in July, while Three Sierra Scenes for piano trio was premiered in November, in a Composers Performance Ensemble concert at the Palo Alto (CA) Arts Center.
Performances
The Welch-Hancock Duo performed Muir Woods, for organ and piano, at the First Presbyterian Church Concert Series in Santa Barbara, CA, in February 2006. An ensemble of twenty pianists led by Joan Reist presented Three Odd Meters, for piano four-hands, at the MTNA National Conference in Austin, TX. Miami Mambo and Tango Argentina for piano duo were performed by Hye Yeong Min and Jeanette Peavier in May at the Diablo Valley College Recital Series in Pleasanton, CA. South American DancesThree Scenes from New Orleans, Three Odd Meters, and South American Dances at a July SAI Musicale in Portola Valley, CA. was performed by duo-pianists Anne Russell and Hye Yeong Min at the Berkeley Piano Club in Berkeley, CA in June, 2006. The Clark-Rocklin Duo presented Three Scenes from New Orleans, Three Odd Meters, and South American Dances at a July SAI Musicale in Portola Valley, CA.