NORMA BEECROFT LEONARD COHEN 7" ELECTRONIC-AVANT-CAPAC

$

28

NORMA BEECROFT

 PORTRAIT MUSICAL 7"

CAPAC

Rare vinyl document from one of the pioneers of the electronic music in Canada, Norma Beecroft with the text of Leonard Cohen on "Two Went to sleep".

Some info on the release:  Very rare original issue, released in Canada sometime in the 70's on the CAPAC Portrait Musical series (that featured also musical portraits of Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux, Bernard Bonnier, Yves Daoust, Paul Dolden, Philippe Menard, Alain Thibault, R. Murray Schaffer and many more). This one features a mix-up of electronic, avant-garde and more contemporary material, with side b: being more experimental / electronic oriented and side a: showing aspects of her more avant-garde / contemporary work. Featuring text of Leonard  Cohen on "Two went to Sleep".

Norma Marian Beecroft (born 11 April 1934) is a Canadian composer, producer, broadcaster, and arts administrator. Born in Oshawa, Beecroft is the daughter of Julian Beecroft, a musician and inventor who was a pioneer in the development of electronic tape, and actress Eleanor Beecroft (née Chambers). She received her earliest musical education from her parents, both of whom had a significant amount of musical training. Her father had originally intended to pursue a career as a concert pianist and had performed in concerts in his early 20s. His career, however, was cut short when he lost three of his fingers in a tragic woodworking accident. Her parents married in 1931 and their marriage produced four other children besides Norma. They divorced in 1947 when she was 13 years old. In 1950 Beecroft began taking private piano lessons with Aladar Ecsedy, studying with him until she entered The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCMT) in 1952. She attended classes at the RCMT through 1958 where her professors included Gordon Hallett (piano), Weldon Kilburn (piano), and John Weinzweig (music theory and composition). In 1957-1958 she studied the flute privately with Keith Girard and in the summer of 1958 was a pupil at the Berkshire Music Center where she studied composition with Aaron Copland and Lukas Foss.

In 1959 Beecroft went to Rome to pursue graduate studies in composition with Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. She remained in that city through 1962 where she also continued studies in the flute privately with Severino Gazzelloni. In the summers of 1960 and 1961 she attended lectures taught by Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany and at the Dartington School in England. In 1962 she returned to Canada to pursue courses in electronic music at the University of Toronto with Myron Schaeffer. After completing these studies, she went to New York City to work with Mario Davidovsky at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1964. During the 1970s, Beecroft was busy working as a freelance radio producer, notably creating numerous documentaries for CBC Radio on Canadian composers like Jean Coulthard, Harry Freedman, Bruce Mather, Barbara Pentland, Harry Somers, Gilles Tremblay, and John Weinzweig among others. She also created documentaries on composers Murray Adaskin and Violet Archer for CJRT-FM. In 1975 she put together 13 broadcast records entitled Music Canada that contained music taken from recordings in the collections at the libraries of Radio Canada International and the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada. In 1976 she won the Major Armstrong Award for excellence in FM broadcasting for her documentary The Computer in Music. She later produced electronic music scores for William Shakespeare's Macbeth (1982) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1983) at the Stratford Festival. In 1971 Beecroft co-founded the New Music Concerts (NMC) with composer and flutist Robert Aitken. The NMC was founded with the purpose of providing a performance venue for new music as well as providing performers with opportunities to further master modern performance techniques. Beecroft served as the organization's presiden through 1989. She was a member of the music faculty at York University from 1984-1987 where she taught classes in electronic music and composition. She has since returned there as a guest lecturer and worked in that capacity at the University of Montreal as well.

Close to the musical language of Hugh Le Caine, Istvan Anhalt, Michel Longtin, Michael Snow, Gordon Monahan, David Rosenboom, Sonde, Music Gallery Editions and similar.

Condition: Vinyl lies in excellent- condition, looks clean with a couple of marks on side a: and plays nicely all along with some light surface noise, while cover lies in mint shape, like new.

Tracklist

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