Diemer, Emma Lou Website
of Santa Barbara, CaliforniaEncore for Piano
7' $ 8.00 #040070 AP-108
Recording: Vienna Modern Masters CD 2002"A strongly melodic piece, Encore is both accessible and enjoyable." (Indiana Gazette)
Encore was written in 1981 for Diemer's colleague at the University of California at Santa Barbara, pianist Betty Oberacker. The piece is virtuosic and technically demanding, concerned more with short motives than with extended melodic development. It has been widely performed and is available on a Vienna Modern Masters compact disc.
Toccata for Piano
6'40" $ 8.00 #040071 AP-109
YouTube
Repertoire of the Seventeen National Piano Competition"There was a sense of tonality in Miss Diemer's Toccata and a sense of theater that was very striking indeed." (Charleston News & Courier)
God Is Love
SSAATBB with electronic tape (moderate difficulty)
$1.50 #040012 AP-512 (tape is 7 1/4 ips 1/4 track stereo @ $15.00)"a remarkable effect of spiritual otherworldliness" (The American Organist)
This choral piece requires the chorus to speak as well as sing, and is in six continuous sections. There is an electronic tape part as well. It was composed for the 1982 Annual Arts Festival of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C. The American Organist review says, "If you have successfully tried anthems with electronic tape in the past, do consider this one. The anthem uses John 4:13-21 for text, and has two sections of choir speaking the text with tape background and two sections of choir singing the text with the tape doubling the voice parts."
And I Saw a New Heaven and a New Earth
from "Revelations 21" for medium high voice, trumpet, and organ or piano
6'45" $ 7.00 #040036 AP-315This dramatic work varies in mood from declamatory or dynamic to lyrical.
Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God
from "Psalm 51" for medium voice and organ or piano
3'35" $ 6.00 #040037 AP-316The music is quite tonal, very expressive and moving. A portion of the piece appears as an Offertory response in The New Century Hymnal (Pilgrim Press, 1995).
I Will Sing of Your Steadfast Love
from "Psalm 89" for high voice and organ
4'25" $ 6.00 #040038 AP-317This is a joyous solo, rhythmic and colorful, ending with a jubilant expression of praise.
Who Can Find a Virtuous Woman?
from "Psalm 31" for medium high voice and organ or piano
4'35" $ 6.00 #040039 AP-318"Proverbs 31" is a chapter exalting and honoring women of stature and virtue. The setting is lyrical and tonally uncomplicated, and should be sung with dignity of expression.
"[she] has a healthily heretical streak in her personality--and a sense of theater that was very striking indeed." (Charleston News & Courier)
A composer with over 100 awards along with commissions from the Louisville Orchestra and the Kindler Foundation, Emma Lou Diemer has consciously balanced her output of symphonic and electronic pieces with music for the church and school. She is also an accomplished pianist and organist and has been a Professor of Theory and Composition at the University of California at Santa Barbara since 1971. Kansas City born, she earned her undergraduate and Master's degrees from the Yale School of Music and her doctorate from the Eastman School of Music.
A Fulbright Scholarship took her to Brussels for further study, and a Ford Foundation grant put her in Washington, D.C. to write music for area schools.
Emma Lou Diemer was guest composer at the sixth annual Women in Music Festival 2010 at the Eastman School of Music in March, 2010, where a concert of her works for chorus, organ, guitar, and a new commissioned chamber work was premiered.
Sisra Publications (the name used by Arsis Press for ASCAP composers) has published her widely performed Toccata for Piano as well as her Encore for Piano along with four sacred vocal solos (And I Saw a New Heaven and a New Earth, Create in Me a Clean heart, O God, I Will Sing of Your Steadfast Love, Who Can Find a Virtuous Woman?) and a choral piece, God is Love. Over 100 of her works are published elsewhere and many are recorded.
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