Large Ensemble - chamber/mixed
Theodore Presser, Carl Fischer, Boelke-Bomart/Schott/Mobart, Songs of Peer, and Warner-Chappell are distributors for Katherine's music.
Theodore Presser, Carl Fischer, Boelke-Bomart/Schott/Mobart, Songs of Peer, and Warner-Chappell are distributors for Katherine's music.
Overture for orchestra. This little piece started with the simplest of ideas - a ball bouncing. Soon I realized that different balls bounce in various ways, with different patterns and sounds. Next thing I knew, this bouncing began to take over a whole orchestra - winds, strings, brass, and finally percussion, each bounding about in its own way. Finally, the sound of a Cuban rhythm section, as bouncy as anything on the planet, joins the fun.
Three movements, with a debt to big bands and jazz.
The Clarinet Concerto was written in 1986-87 for the jazz virtuoso Eddie Daniels. In writing this piece, I have used material from both the classical repertoire and improvising traditions. The Concerto is structured in a familiar format of three movements, with numerous elements of jazz and big band sounds - harmonies, rhythms, riffs, and some improvisation. The first and last movements, both lively, frame an Elegy, written on the death of a friend.
Psalm 23 has a very personal and unusual history. Written in February, 1981, when my mother was permanently disabled by illness, it was given its first performance on Mother's Day, directed by the Reverend Dennis Michno at All-Saints church in New York. Dennis then obtained a commission from the Episcopal Diocese of New York to orchestrate the work.
In this version, the piece Premiered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine during the Fifth Annual Festival of Worship and Music on October 24, 1981, by a chorus of 400 and orchestra.
My mother passed away quietly the next day.
One movement, Cello Concerto based on Pueblo tale of Grandmother Spider who wove the world. One movement is based on the SW Indian creation story about the Spider who wove the world in her web.
There are many ways of thinking about the world. Mathematics is one. Anyone who has learned a second language knows that not only do words differ, entire concepts do as well. Music has its own meanings and structures, which cannot be reduced to words. Native American stories are another means of perceiving reality. Calling them 'myths', or implying that they are untrue or insignificant blinds us to a rich world of meanings.
Stitch-te Naku is a story of creation, and of weaving; of Stitch-te Naku, the Spider-Grandmother who wove the world in her web, and all of its features and creatures. As for weaving - we weave cloth, stories, plans; we 'weave the fabric of our lives'. And the Spider, creating her web out of herself, has many resonances: about creativity, and persistence...about a single source of creation.
Native American storytellers prefer to tell the tale, and let their listeners ponder the implications.
In my 'tale' I have presented Spider the creator; the weaving-creation of many elements, including birds and animal, and descent into chaos with the sounds of guns. This is followed by a song of mourning, then by renewal, as Stitch-te Naku dances, joined by her creations. Various Native American musical ideas have influenced this work.
Diane Peterson, Rohnert Park Press Democrat
The highlight of the program was the world premiere of Katherine Hoover's evocative and narrative-driven Stitch-te Naku... Based on Native American myths, the piece traces the spiritual journey of the world's creatures, who are given the gift of free will by Old Spider Woman, who creates the world with her web...Throughout the piece, Native American elements are woven in with unusual percussion, droning strings, and pitches that slip and slide... Hoover has captured the indigenous spirit without trivializing it. And she has created a work as silky and ethereal as a spider web itself.
Richard S. Ginnell, The Los Angeles Times 05/03/2000
Katherine Hoover's Stitch-te Naku was performed by the Long Beach, CA Symphony under the direction of Gustav Meier and by the Womens Philharmonic under the direction of Apo Hsu (04/29/2000). Both orchestras featured Sharon Robinson as cello soloist.
The main interest of the concert was a most ingratiating cello concerto by the West Virginia born composer Katherine Hoover called "Stitch-te Naku" a spider-grandmother of Native American lore who weaves all kinds of things into existence. Hoover introduces her soloist ingeniously, setting a wild pastoral scene and having the cello quietly play weird microtonal glides as part of the landscape until the full-blooded solo line bursts into view. Woodwind birds chatter with the cello, rhino-like brasses wail, and an insistent Indian dance dominates the last portion. The 18 (and) 1/2 minute piece works as a unified fresco of creation-with reminders of Ravel's "Daphnis and Chloe" now and then- and cellist Sharon Robinson handled it with real flair and a warmly reverberant tone.
Cheryl North, Oakland Tribune 02/29/2000
...another significant 'nature' piece animated the program: "Stitch-te Naku" for cello and orchestra, a 1994 composition by Katherine Hoover. Meant to tell the Native American tale of Spider-Grandmother who wove the world, with all its features and creatures in her web, it brimmed with orchestrated bird calls and chirps, animal voices, and American Indian-sounding themes...the melody lines...were intensely descriptive, but wordless ballads.
A single movement, combining a slow and fast dance.
Summer Night was completed in July, 1985, and premiered by the New York Concerto Orchestra outdoors in Lincoln Center the following September. It was published by Theodore Presser, with a piano reduction, in 1986. The flute and horn are a rather mismatched pair in many ways. To let their individual qualities sound, I began with a short soliloquy for each. This is followed by a slow dance which grows out of the soliloquies, and then a lively one, as the instruments (or characters, or thoughts) meet and interact.
Audio
SUMMER NIGHT is an apt description of what Katherine Hoover evokes in her lyrical, bucolic work that spotlights the horn and flute. It is engaging and thoroughly accessible.
Thomas Putnam, American Record Guide
This is a really good American piece, and its sound is open and pleasing.
