"Crosscurrents in Musical Design" in conjunction with
"Crosscurrents: Art, Craft and Design in North Carolina"

DATE: September 25 2005, 3 PM (2 PM Tour)

SITE: NC Museum of Art   Map 
2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh

TICKETS: $10 General Public; $8 NCMA Members & Students

INFORMATION & TICKET SALES

 - NCMA Box Office (919) 715-5923
 - Raleigh Chamber Music Guild (919) 821-2030

PROGRAM

• Bullock: Elegy Sonata for Cello and Piano (in memory of the 9-11 victims)
• Bullock: Three Tango Fantasies for piano solo
• Brahms: Sonata in E Minor for cello and piano

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Edmund Barton Bullock has been leading a double career as composer and pianist with success, performing his own works and chamber music throughout the United States and Europe to enthusiastic audiences. His first major work, Sextet for Two Violins, Viola, 'Cello, Flute, and Piano was composed at the age of 15, and was premiered at the Eastern Music Festival, conducted by Carl Roskott, receiving a warmly encouraging review by the Greensboro Daily News and Record. The composer himself then conducted this work on a local television broadcast. Bullock received his Bachelor of Music, with honors, in piano performance, with a scholarship from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, under the direction of Dr. George Kiorpes and Dr. Joseph DiPiazza. He began at this time to concertize, and received a spirited review from the Raleigh News and Observer, after a concert in the North Carolina State Art Museum chamber music series.

In 1978, under the advice of French pianist Daniel Ericourt, Artist in Residence at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Bullock went to Paris to continue his studies with renowned Paris Conservatory professor Pierre Sancan, and at the Paris Conservatory Summer Music School in Nice. Under full scholarship at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, he received the Licence d'Enseignement, with honors, and a performance prize for the prestigious License de Concert in 1988, in the class of Victoria Melki.

Beginning a new creative period in his life after attaining residency in France, Bullock moved to the area of Toulouse in 1989. In 1990, he composed a chamber orchestra work for musical theater, commissioned by Association La 440, "Kochka", which received a moving premiere at the Scene Nationale in Foix and enthusiastic reviews by the local press. He taught piano and composition with the Association La 440, at the Lucette Descaves International Piano Academy in Foix, and as associate professor at the Toulouse and Albi Conservatories. He continued his piano studies with French pianist Thérese Dussaut, and Russian pianist Yevgeni Malinin, concertizing as soloist and chamber musician in Southwest France and Paris.

In 1994, Bullock began a nine-year collaboration with the La Gesse Foundation and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, studying piano and composition with director Dr. Robert Sirota. He performed Mozart's Concerto in d minor for Piano and Orchestra with the Hartford Chamber Orchestra in 1995, in Hartford and at the Maison Française of the Embassy of France in Washington, D. C. with glowing press reviews. This was also an intensely creative period of composition, with the song cycle "L'Ame de la Gesse" for Soprano and Piano, Four Seasons for Piano, a trio, violin sonata, 'cello sonata, and numerous other works for piano and chamber music. He began at the same time an intense period of concertizing, becoming more and more specialized in chamber music, performing in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, and Spain with renowned artists such as Stephen Kates, 'cellist, Shigenori Kudo, flutist, Hyunah Yu, soprano, [&] Michael Lankester, conductor. His Songs of the Night for Soprano and Piano Trio, based on texts by Cecilia de Medici, received a standing ovation after its emotional premiere in the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York, in 1999. This work also received a warm review from the Toulouse Dépeche, after a performance sponsored by the La Gesse and Bemberg Foundations in Toulouse in 2000. An evening of Bullock's chamber music works were performed in the Carnegie Recital Hall in September 2002, which received a standing ovation. This concert featured his Sonata for Violin and Piano, a repeat performance of his Songs of the Night, and the premiere of his Elegy Sonata for 'Cello and Piano, dedicated to the victims of September 11, 2001. In 1999, Bullock began a collaboration with the prestigious Académie des Jeux Floraux de Toulouse, the oldest literary society in the western world, founded in 1323 by seven troubadours. His Cycle of Seven Art Songs in honor of the Seven Troubadours and of Clémence Isaure, founders of the Jeux Floraux of Toulouse, based on texts of members of the Académie, was premiered in the Clémence Isaure Hall in 2001. This cycle was also performed in the Carnegie Recital Hall the same year, along with his Tre Canzonieri, based on sonnets of Petrarca in Italian, and his Cycle of Five Troubadour Songs, based on English translations by American poet Ezra Pound of twelfth-century poems in Languedoc. Bullock and the permanent Académie member and poet, Pierre Trainar, are collaborating on a project to create an opera on the epic period of Catharism and the dramatic history of the ancient civilization of Occitania, a popular and passionate theme in French history.

Bullock has recently begun works for large ensembles, and received a major commission for his "Appalachian" Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, which will be premiered in April 2005, with the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra and Russian pianist, Bair Shagdaron. He is creating a transcription for Wind Ensemble of his Three Tango Fantasies, and has begun work on an opera in French, based on the history of Occitania, the Albigensian Crusades and the troubadour tradition. He has also begun a recent collaboration with the eminent French soprano, Catherine Dubosc on a program of Troubadour Art Songs.

As a soloist Whitehouse has appeared with the New England Chamber Orchestra, the Nashua Symphony, the New Brunswick Symphony, the Billings Symphony, and the Owensboro Symphony, and has appeared in recital throughout the northeastern United States. His performances have been broadcast on WQXR's "McGraw-Hill Young Artist Showcase", WNYC's "Around New York," and the Australian and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation networks. He has held fellowships at the Blossom and Bach Aria festivals, and was winner of the Cabot prize as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. As guest artist he has appeared with the Seacliffe Chamber Players, the New Millennium Ensemble, the JU Piano Trio, The Apple Hill Chamber Players, the Atelier Ensemble and the New Zealand String Quartet. His principal teachers were Timothy Eddy and Norman Fischer.