by Caiti Beth McKinney
Hi horn friends, and happy 2024!
I’m starting off this year with a composer who sadly left us in 2023. Nancy Van de Vate, an incredibly prolific composer and advocate for women in music, was a pillar of the music world. In addition to founding the League of Women Composers in 1975 (which later merged into the International Alliance for Women in Music), she also was a professor at several educational institutions, including the University of Tennessee and the University of Hawaii.
Some of Van de Vate’s larger scale works include a well-received opera entitled All Quiet on the Western Front, and twenty-six pieces for orchestra; the most famous of these is a gut-wrenching work, Chernoybl, about the 1986 nuclear catastrophe. She also composed an extensive catalogue of chamber works, including two brass quintets, a brass quartet, and several trios for horn and mixed instrumentation.
One of my favorites among Van de Vate’s works is Brass Quintet No. 2: Variations on “The Streets of Laredo.” While not particularly challenging, this piece is a tonal crowd pleaser which features every instrument in the group in turn. My Texas roots might bias me in favor of the source material, but I think the variations are tons of fun!
Van de Vate also composed several chamber works for horn, including a trio for Horn, Viola, and Piano, another trio for Horn, Alto Flute, and Piano, and a piece for one of my favorite instrumentations, a violin trio! Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano alternates moods between movements, switching back and forth between mysterious and at times somber moments, and driving, rhythmic eighth note patterns in the faster movements. Well within the reach of a collegiate horn player, the trio is a great addition to our repertoire!
If you would like to learn more about this incredible composer, check out her extensive biography, Journeys through the Life and Music of Nancy Van de Vate.
Happy New Year!
