Marshall Opera will present mezzo-soprano Mary Rice and pianist Amir Farid performing "I'm Told I'm a Citizen" from Victoria Bond's opera "Mrs. President."

The language is pervasively chromatic, yet it takes in influences of all sorts, including blues, a waltz and fragments of popular songs mentioned by Joyce." -The New York Times

WQXR Radio: A Thousand More Will Rise: Victoria Bond Finds Inspiration in Women Past and Present. 

Six musical portraits of colorfully weird, menacing plant…It takes a composer of Bond's skill to work them into a vivid picture, and a player of Cooper's caliber to make the most of it. Together they had the audience laughing out loud.
- The Villager

Based on a Greek Orthodox chant, this solo work became the basis for the piano concerto "Ancient Keys."

I am fascinated with the music of the Far East and in my travels I have had ample opportunity to participate both as performer and composer in the music of China. Although I have never been to Japan, I am attracted to its music and to its culture. For many years have had a strong desire to compose a work related to Rashomon. The story was adapted by Akutagawa Ry?nosuke from the Konjaku Monogatarish?, an anonymous 12th Century collection of folk tales. The story tells of a murder witnessed by a group of people who have gathered under the dilapidated Rashomon gate to escape the rain. Rashomon literally means “the castle gate” and is the name of a large gate that stood between Kyoto and Nara in Japan. All of their accounts of the crime differ radically, but we are never told which account is the truth.
The form of the story is intrinsically musical, being a theme and variations, but the emotional context gives this classical form a new perspective. I divided the work into four movements, and within the larger theme and variations, each movement has its own form:
I. The Gate - Theme
II. The Murder: A Crime of Violence – Variations
III. The Murder: A Cold Calculation – Passacaglia
IV. The Murder: A Crime of Passion - Rondo

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: In Tune with Justice
Program Note
Because Ruth Bader Ginsberg is a towering figure and an inspiration to me, I wanted to write a work that added music to her forceful words. Knowing that she loved opera, this was a natural. I chose Mozart’s overture to “The Marriage of Figaro” as the basis for my composition, borrowing freely and adapting his energetic pulse, so appropriate to RBG’s own boundless energy. My music weaves in and out of Mozart’s themes, beginning with a fast-paced overture and continuing with underscoring and interludes that highlight RBG’s words. I added quotes from “America the Beautiful” and “The Star Spangled Banner” to this mixture, expressing the patriotic pride that RBG felt towards this country. Jane Vial Jaffe has created a compact script, framing RBG’s words with her own original narrative and bringing into relief the struggle and triumph central to the story.

Solo Piano 9'

Publisher: Protone Music

Simeron Kremate by composer Victoria Bond was written in the fall of 2018/spring of 2019 and is based on the Greek Orthodox crucifixion chant from the Holy Thursday service during Orthodox Holy Week. Its opening five-note melody in the plagal of the second mode features the augmented seconds that are characteristic of this musically compelling mode. 

Sirens is a work that I will be composing to a text taken from episode 11 of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The action takes place in a bar, and involves two seductive barmaids who flirt with customers. Several men stand around the piano, singing and flirting with the barmaids, and Leopold Bloom observes the scene, feeling alienated and lonely. As with all of the episodes in Ulysses, this episode is about being an outsider, a stranger in a strange land, a misfit and someone who is scorned and reviled by the society in which he lives. Leopold Bloom is Jewish and experiences prejudice living in Dublin. He is also everyman or everywoman who feels apart and alone in the midst of a world that has no use for him or her.
The piece will be scored for the Cygnus Ensemble: 2 guitars, flute, oboe, violin, cello and piano and has been commissioned by the Shapiro Fund for the Cygnus Ensemble. This will be the fourth section of Ulysses that I will be setting, having already set episodes 12 (Cyclops); episode 17 (Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming) and episode 18 (Molly ManyBloom). It will be approximately 20 minutes long and will involve 5 singers: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass-baritone.

https://soundcloud.com/victoria-bond-7/sets/molly-manybloom-excerpt

Sirens is a work that I will be composing to a text taken from episode 11 of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The action takes place in a bar, and involves two seductive barmaids who flirt with customers. Several men stand around the piano, singing and flirting with the barmaids, and Leopold Bloom observes the scene, feeling alienated and lonely. As with all of the episodes in Ulysses, this episode is about being an outsider, a stranger in a strange land, a misfit and someone who is scorned and reviled by the society in which he lives. Leopold Bloom is Jewish and experiences prejudice living in Dublin. He is also everyman or everywoman who feels apart and alone in the midst of a world that has no use for him or her.
The piece will be scored for the Cygnus Ensemble: 2 guitars, flute, oboe, violin, cello and piano and has been commissioned by the Shapiro Fund for the Cygnus Ensemble. This will be the fourth section of Ulysses that I will be setting, having already set episodes 12 (Cyclops); episode 17 (Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming) and episode 18 (Molly ManyBloom). It will be approximately 20 minutes long and will involve 5 singers: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass-baritone.

The eleventh episode in Ulysses is James Joyce’s verbal equivalent of musical counterpoint. He has called this episode a “fuga per canonem,” assigning to each character the role of a musical line. Actual music is quoted and sung by the denizens of a bar in the Ormond Hotel as they gather around the piano.