Harold Boatrite

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Harold Boatrite (b. April 2nd, 1932 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American composer.

After early studies with Stanley Hollingsworth, Harold Boatrite was awarded a fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center where he studied composition with Lukas Foss and took part in the orchestration seminars of Aaron Copland. In 1961 he was invited by Rudolph Serkin to be composer-in-residence at the Marlboro Music Festival^[1].

He received an honorary doctorate in 1967 from the Combs College of Music and subsequently was appointed to the faculty of Haverford College, where he taught theory and composition until 1980. During that time ( 1974 to 1977 ) he served on the music panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

In honor of his fiftieth birthday in 1982, a series of concerts devoted exclusively to his music was presented by the Pennsylvania Alliance for American Music. Among the participants in the series were the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Thomas Jefferson University Choir and the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia.^[2] Boatrite has written in a wide variety of media ranging from solo and chamber pieces to large-scale choral and orchestral works. His music has been heard throughout the United States and in Europe, most notably, at the Prague Autumn International Music Festival.

He has received many commissions including a ballet, "Childermas," for CBS-TV, a concerto for piano and orchestra for the National Association of Composers USA, Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings commissioned by Temple Painter and Fantasia on a Gregorian Tune for string orchestra, harpsichord, celesta and boy choir commissioned by the Samuel S. Fels Fund.

In 1992 Boatrite was appointed composer-in-residence for the Conductors Institute at the University of South Carolina. He served for many years as new music consultant to the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. His chamber music is recorded on the Capstone label and his orchestral scores are housed in the Edwin A. Fleisher Orchestral Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.

One of Boatrite's current projects is the completion of a series of Latin motets for unaccompanied chorus.

Throughout the 20th century, every new compositional style that came into vogue seemed to fix the attention of the classical music world with uncanny fervor. As each new fashion waxed and an old one waned, the critics and academes hailed the dawn of the authentic voice of our time. And so, as the culture pundits were content to chase the next-big-thing, and as young composers bravely gulped and chose their corners, Harold Boatrite succeeded in being a modern artist without answering to modernity.

This extraordinary independence is witnessed in the music listed below, which profiles Boatrite's work over the last half-century. Beginning with Study on a Welsh Tune, composed in 1953, and followed by a sampling of major and lesser works drawn from the succeeding decades, this selection of pieces demonstrates not only the composer's comfort in working in diverse instrumental and vocal combinations, but also a remarkable stylistic consistency over a long period of time. This fact notwithsatnding, each new piece promises bold textures, adventurous harmonies, and uncompromising expressive intensity. Simply put, he managed to grow and develop as a composer, without reinventing himself at every turn.

Boatrite's fresh approach to the harpsichord, as well as his motets, clearly marks him as a man deeply in touch with the music of the past. Far from paraphrasing a bygone era, these works reveal the quiet confidence of a composer in unique contact with older forms. In a century that was conspicuous for its self-sufficiency, Boatrite stayed in conversation with the past. A word like "fugue" was no more constraining to him than the word "soup" might be to a chef. Fugue is a compositional process-plain and simple. It is a prescribed approach to handling thematic material, based primarily on melodic imitation. In Boatrite's hands, the procedure of fugue remains essentially the same as that exercised by the old masters. But infused with his musical personality-his harmonic sense, his rhythmic and melodic interest-a new and inimitable musical reality emerges. The creative tension that operates in Boatrite's work supports the idea that human pursuits that are enjoyable, or even fun, tend also to be subject to rules and principles. This proposition also characterizes music as a social activity, with all of the mutual obligations that are attached. For his part, Boatrite has assumed a balanced position with respect to his performers and listeners. He satisfies the human thirst for originality, yet avoids the temptation to unintelligibility.
--adapted from the liner notes of the archival recordings; written by Timothy McDonnell.

[edit] Selected Works

(1953)		"Study on a Welsh Tune" for Pipe Organ
(1954-60)		Song Cycle: Night Songs for High Voice and Piano (words by Lydia Ann Francis and Edgar Allan Poe)
(1956)		Sonata for Piano [3]
(1957)		Three Alleluias for A Cappella Chorus [4]
(1957)		Lyric Suite for Piano [3]
(1958)		Elegy for String Orchestra[4]
(1959)		String Quartet
(1960)		Sonata-Fantasia for Harpsichord[3]
(1961)		Sonata for Cello and Piano[3]
(1961)		Suite for Harpsichord[3]
(1963)		Sonata for Flute and Piano[3]
(1964)		Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra[4]
(1964)		Voluntary for Three Trumpets and Organ
(1965)		Serenade for Oboe and Strings[4]
(1972)		Largo and Allegro for Piano and Orchestra (Piano concerto)
(1973)		"War Anthem for Chorus and Orchestra" (A.K.A. Choral Elegy) Words by Stephen Crane[4]
(1982)		"Fantasia on a Gregorian Tune" for Harpsichord, Celesta, Strings and Boy Choir
(1984)		Villanelle: Rounds for A Cappella Chorus (Words by Frank Wilson)
(1984-04)		A Cappella Motets: "Qui Seminant", "Ave Maria", "The Holy Child" [4]
(1965-97)		Seven Miniatures for Piano[3]
(2000)		Adagio and Fugue for String Orchestra[4]
(2004)		Three Etudes for Piano Requiring the Middle Pedal
(2006)		A Cappella Motet: "Clamaverunt Justi"

[edit] References