Richard Danielpour
A Woman’s Life
Richard Danielpour was born in New York City in 1956. He composed this work in 2007 on a commission from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. These are the world premiere performances. The score calls for 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.
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A Woman’s Life was composed in the summer of 2007 for Angela Brown. It was Angela who premiered the role of “Cilla” in my opera Margaret Garner in 2005, and while I was consistently impressed by her artistry and power onstage (she sang the role in Philadelphia and Cincinnati), I was especially taken with her graciousness and deep compassion for all of her colleagues. And so when she brought up the idea of my writing a cycle expressly for her I became instantly interested in finding the right combination of forces needed to bring such a thing into being.
When I asked Angela in 2006 if she had a preference of a poet who would provide texts for the cycle, she unhesitatingly mentioned Maya Angelou. At that time she didn’t know that Dr. Angelou had been my friend and collaborator (in 1998 with a work entitled Portraits) and that I had also wanted to create a new piece with her.
I went to see Maya Angelou at her New York townhouse with my wife Kathleen in early July 2006—I wanted to see if she would write texts that would show the trajectory of a woman’s life, from childhood to old age. When I asked her about this she informed me that she already had it and that she would read them to us.
And so without hesitation, holding our hands at her dining room table, she read beautifully and yet calmly from her collected poems eight poems which made a perfect cycle fulfilling my intention. It was honestly one of the greatest performances I have ever witnessed in my life and it was all I needed, along with seven of the eight poems she read, to write this cycle of songs.
                                                        —Richard Danielpour