Musik Fabrik welcomes composer Gloria Coates

The newest addition to Musik Fabrik's roster is the American composer Gloria Coates, the woman composer who has written more symphonies than any other woman in history. Ms. Coates' First Symphony "Music for Open Strings" is considered one of the most important works in microtonal music and has written fifteen other symphonies, many of which have been recorded by major orchestras. She has also written nine string quartets, a great deal of chamber music, vocal music and for the theatre.

Her first work published by Musik Fabrik is her Elegy for flute and piano, and was part of our collective homage to Claude Lévi-Strauss on his 100th birthday. The composer gave the following program note for this work :

Elegy was written as a commission in 2002 in the wake of the tragedy of September 11th. Because the emotions were too close to me, I didn't feel like having this work performed. Thus I wrote a different piece for that commission and put Elegy away on a shelf.
It was forgotten completely until this fall when Elizabeth Weinzierl, the German flutist, who had originally commissioned the piece, asked to perform it with the pianist Eva Schieferstein in a concert in Munich's Performing Center Gasteig. Thus, the premier took place October 12, 2008.
A few days later, Paul Wehage asked for a composition in celebration of Claude Levi-Strauss' 100th. birthday. One remembers his great writing Tristes Tropiques which is a romantic elegy on the Amazon.
My own Elegy not only expressed my feelings about the injustice and destructive impulses in the 2001 terrorist attack, but could also include other negative forces in our civilization today such as the destruction of the Amazon. Thus, I have dedicated this work to the 100th. birthday of Claude Levi-Strauss and his untiring energy to elevate the spiritual and ecological thinking and actions in our threatened world.

Elegy for Flute and Piano is available on our Flute music catalog.