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Earthlight (1973)
Earthlight is subtitled "a romanza for violin con sordino, high soprano, piano, and lights." (Kim) Spotlights come up on the musicians when they perform, and fade out when they are silent. The work joins together fragments of a number of texts by Samuel Beckett, employing a restricted set of pitches in the opening and closing sections. Earthlight was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and is part of a larger theater piece entitled Narratives.
Earl Kim (1920-1998) was a noted composer and pianist and an important mentor to young musicians and composers. Kim's output consisted primarily of spare but intensely expressive vocal works; he was known especially for his compositions for music theater, many on texts by Samuel Beckett.
Kim was born in Dinuba, California, the third son of immigrant Korean parents. He began piano lessons at age nine, and later studied composition and theory with Arnold Schoenberg at the University of California, Los Angeles and Ernest Bloch at University of California, Berkeley. During World War II he served as a combat intelligence officer for the US Army Air Force; after the war he returned to Berkeley to study with Roger Sessions. Kim taught for 15 years at Princeton University in New Jersey, and in 1967 joined the faculty of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he remained for 23 years until his retirement.
Kim was honored throughout his career with commissions and grants from the Fromm, Guggenheim, and Koussevitzky Foundations, Boston University, University of Chicago, and awards such as the Prix de Paris and Brandeis Creative Arts Award. His music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra; sopranos Bethany Beardslee, Dawn Upshaw, and Benita Valente; and violinist Itzhak Perlman. Recordings of Kim's music can be found on the Albany, Bis, Naxos, New World, and Nonesuch labels. His last major work, The White Hour, was premiered in 1998 by the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra.
related websites
http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=EARLKIM
As of this writing, information on soprano Merja Sargon is not available.
Violinist Martha Potter studied at the Juilliard School of Music and was active as a chamber musician. Now retired, she taught violin for many years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Potter currently lives in New York City and continues to perform as a freelance violinist. She is the widow of Earl Kim.
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