Dr. Maxine Thévenot, Instructor of Organ, here at the UNM Department of Music, was one of 14 women organists selected to participate in the Jeanne Demessieux Centennial Tribute. To commemorate the virtuoso French organist, Jeanne Demissieux.
Dr. Thévenot was selected by the women who organized the event, Susan Jane Matthews, Joy-Leilani Garbutt, and Janet Yieh, a collaboration between Boulanger Initiative and the Amplify Female Composers. Dr. Thévenot was an easy choice, having played Jeanne Demessieux music before. Dr. Thévenot is among the foremost artists of her generation, hailed across North America and Europe for her skillful musical playing and inventive programming.
“It was an honor to be chosen among several female organists.” Said Dr. Thévenot. “It was empowering to see all these women paying tribute to Jeanne Demessieux. I was delighted to watch all these women playing different musical instruments, and it was lovely to share the New Mexico music scene.”
There are several places to watch the tribute:
Christ the King – a virtual organist, “Demessieux Te Deum, Opus 11“, featuring Katelyn Emerson, Kimberly Marshall, Joy, Susan, and Janet Yieh, coordinated by Susan Jane Matthews. On the Boulanger Initiative YouTube Channel.
A new documentary video “Sacred Spaces and Inspirations,” also on the Boulanger Initiative YouTube Channel, featuring 9 minutes of interviews and footage from St. Esprit, Paris with Hampus Lindwall and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC with Raymond Nagem, coordinated by Joy-Leilani Garbutt.
St. Cecilia’s Day – the 12 Choral Preludes on Gregorian Chant Themes, Opus 8, on the Amplify Female Composers YouTube Channel
- Rorate caeli (Choral orné) – Sarah Simko
- Adeste fideles (Musette) – Renée Anne Louprette
- Attende Domine (Choral paraphrase) – Jennifer Pascual
- Stabat Mater (Cantabile) – Linda Buzard
- Vexilla Regis (Prélude) – Janet Yieh
- Hosanna Filio David (Choral fugue) – Joy-Leilani Garbutt
- O filii et filiae (Variations) – Carolyn Craig
- Veni Creator (Toccata) – Nicole Marane
- Ubi caritas (Ricercare) – Crista Miller
- In manus tuas (Litanie) – Maxine Thévenot
- Tu es Petrus (Marcia) – Susan Jane Matthews
- Domine Jesu (Berceuse) – Catherine Rodland
Dr. José Luis Hurtado awarded prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
Composer and pianist José Luis Hurtado, an associate professor in The University of New Mexico’s Department of Music in the College of Fine Arts, is one of the 2020 winners of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.
You Can’t Tell It Like I Can: Black Women, Music, and the Struggle for Social Justice in America
This lecture/performance explores how black women have used music as a method of shaping the public rhetoric and sentiment surrounding the black civil rights struggle in America. Through a historical framework that moves through the height of the abolitionist movement, the Popular front during the 1930s and 1940s, the frontlines of the direct action campaigns of the 1960s, and the proliferation of the Black Power movement in the 1970s.
An Americanish Songbook: Linda Ronstadt’s “other” Country
This talk will consider performances and recordings by singer Linda Ronstadt to propose what I refer to as her Americanish musical songbook. The suffix “ish” here intends to accentuate the “somewhat” or “to some extent” of “American” that Ronstadt—Tucson born and raised—lived and sonically imagined through her extraordinary musical career.