Rhian Samuel

Rhian Samuel was born in Aberdare, Wales, in 1944, and educated in Britain and the United States, where she lived from 1967 to 1984 and taught at the St Louis Conservatory, St Louis. Thereafter, she taught at Reading University and then City University, London, where she is Professor of Music. Her compositions have been performed in many countries; she has also written about music and was co-editor of the New Grove (Norton) Dictionary of Women Composers.

Her large-scale orchestral works span from 'Elegy-Symphony' (1981, St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin), to 'Tirluniau/Landscapes' (BBC Proms, 2000). Many of her vocal works are concerned with woman's experience: they include 'Clytemnestra' (1994, BBCNOW, Della Jones, soprano), 'The White Amaryllis' (1991, BBCNOW, Jane Manning, soprano) and 'Daughters' Letters' (1997, Sinfonia 21, Valdine Anderson, soprano).

Rhian Samuel has written a great deal of chamber instrumental music, including the much performed 'Dream-Images', composed for Martin Roscoe for the Machynlleth Festival, 'Blythswood' for viola and piano,and two piano duos, 'Ymddiddan/Dialogue' for the Micalleff/Inanga Piano Duo, and Serenade Duo for Antithesis, to be premiered at the Purcell Room, London on 13 February, 2005. The Quartet: `Light and Water` for piano and strings, was premiered at the Hampstead and Highgate Festival, London, by the Fidelio Quartet in May 2004.

Rhian Samuel's background as a wind player is reflected in works such as the wind quintet, Primavera, and solo works with piano such as 'Songlines' (saxophone) and 'Shaping the Air' (oboe), both premiered at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Her vocal music ranges from songs with piano such as 'Cerddi Hynafol' (2001) and 'Nantcol Songs' (2003), commissioned by the Fishguard and Presteigne Festivals respectively, to works with orchestra, such as 'Daughters' Letters' (1996), commissioned and first toured throughout England by Sinfonia 21, conductor Martyn Brabbins, with Valdine Anderson, soprano, in 1996, and later throughout Scotland by Patricia Rozario with the BT Scottish Ensemble, director Clio Gould, in 2002. One of Rhian Samuel's most performed works is 'The Hare in the Moon', for voice and piano or voice and percussion, premiered in St Louis in 1978. 'Before Dawn', from the orchestral song-cycle, 'The White Amaryllis', premiered in New York in 1989 and broadcast several times on BBC3, was most recently performed by Sharon Mabry, mezzo-soprano, with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, in Nashville, Tennessee, in April 2004. Another vocal work, 'Trinity: three songs for soprano, flute and piano', will be premiered at the Birmingham Conservatoire on 1 March, 2005 Her music is published by Stainer and Bell: see http://www.stainer.co.uk/samuel.html for more information.

http://www.city.ac.uk/music/staff/rsamuel.html