Antoinette Kirkwood Explained

Antoinette Kirkwood (26 February 1930 - 28 January 2014) was an English composer born in London, with Irish family connections.[1] She studied with Claud Biggs at the Irish Academy of Music and then piano and composition with Dorothy Howell and cello with Paul Tortelier at the Royal Academy of Music.[2] She often accompanied her mother, the soprano Rome Lindsay.[3] Radio Éireann broadcast her Symphony, op 8, composed in 1953.[2] This "very notable achievement", said one unidentified reviewer, established that Kirkwood "can write a memorable tune in a definite key and can hold the listener’s interest for a considerable time".[4] On 28 April 1960 the conductor Kathleen Merritt organized and conducted a Wigmore Hall concert of 'Contemporary British Women Composers', featuring the music of Kirkwood alongside Ina Boyle, Ruth Gipps, Dorothy Howell, Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams.[5]

Kirkwood was the founder and conductor of the St Columba's Orchestra (associated with the London church) from 1957 until 1961. For four years beginning in 1969, she was a member of the executive committee of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain.

She married the writer Richard Phibbs (1911-1986, author of Buried in the Country, 1947) in 1961 at St Columba's.[6] [7] Her marriage, three children and caring for her mother and husband through their terminal illnesses, led to a complete cessation in her composition activity between 1961 and the late 1980s.[1] During that period they were living at 56 Sutherland Street, London SW1.[8]

On her husband's death in 1986 she raised money to re-publish two of his books (Cockle Button, Cockle Ben, for children, and Harmony Hill, four short stories), as well as resuming her own career as a composer.[9] She died on 28 January 2014, aged 84.[10]

Works

Kirkwood composed orchestral concert works, theatre music and two ballet scores, as well as instrumental and chamber pieces (including a cello sonata and the Rapsodie for harp) and many songs. Marie Fitzpatrick identifies a development in her style from the three folksong based orchestral Fantasies (1958–61), through the six Intermezzos for piano of 1959, showing the influence of Bartok, and also including more technically demanding explorations, such as the Soliloquy for guitar (1985).[11] Her publishers are Curlew & Andresier and Bardic Edition. Selected works include:

Orchestral

Chamber and instrumental

Vocal

A few of her works have been recorded and issued on media, including:

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Book: The woman composer: creativity and the gendered politics of music composition. Halstead, Jill . 300 . Scolar Pr . June 1997 . 1-85928-183-4.
  2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07494469400640921 Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 11 Parts 1 and 2, pp. 177-8
  3. Book: Emma . Lazarus . Heinrich . Heine . New York . . 1881 . Antoinette Kirkwood biography. 2 February 2012.
  4. Web site: Antoinette Kirkwood . Bardic Music . 2 February 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120303035135/http://www.bardic-music.com/Kirkwood.htm . 3 March 2012 .
  5. https://www.jstor.org/stable/948317 'London Concerts: Six Women Composers'
  6. Book: Sadie, Julie Anne . The Norton/Grove dictionary of women composers . 250 . Rhian . Samuel . 1994 . New York. W.W. Norton . 0-393-03487-9 . registration .
  7. The Times 24 July 1961, p. 12
  8. Who's Who in Music, 5th ed. (1969), p. 173
  9. Helen Reid. 'For the Love of Richard', Western Daily Press, 1 August 1988, p. 8
  10. Web site: Antoinette Kirkwood. Bardic Music . 24 December 2010 . 3 March 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120303035135/http://www.bardic-music.com/Kirkwood.htm . dead.
  11. Marie Fitzpatrick . 'Kirkwood, Antoinette' in Grove Music Online (2001, rev. 2023)
  12. Web site: Symphony no. 1. 17 April 2009 . British Music Collection.
  13. 'Six Women Composers', The Musical Times, Vol. 101, No. 1408 (June 1960), pp. 373-4
  14. Web site: Scores by Antoinette Kirkwood . https://archive.today/20120719115039/http://soundandmusic.org/thecollection/resources/thecollection/browse/composer/11990 . dead . 19 July 2012 . The Collection . . 3 February 2012 .
  15. Included on A Potpourri of Piano Music, Catherine Nardiello, piano, Cassette CN-105
  16. https://soundcloud.com/gemma-christine-connor/antoinette-kirkwood-cello-sonata-op6-iii-allegro-con-brio extract performed by Gemma Christine Connor
  17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I69u7u14fnc Suite for Strings - Antoinette Kirkwood (Estreia Nacional Brasileira)

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