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Posted: |
Jul 10, 2014 - 9:55 AM
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By: |
Rozsaphile
(Member)
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Yes, she’s one of them, the youngest child of the great Alfred. She was born in 1962, very late in her father’s career. (He died in 1970, when Maria was only eight.) Maria Newman has been a somewhat elusive figure to me. As a violist, she made the first recording of the Rozsa concerto. It was a much-appreciated labor of love that Tony Thomas had engineered on behalf of the incapacitated composer. Later I believe Newman participated in an experimental reading of Rozsa’s first (unpublished) Violin Concerto from 1927. There was also an exceedingly rare CD, on which her chamber ensemble performed several modern works, including her own lovely arrangement of themes from The Robe. But all of that was back in the 1990s. I hadn’t heard much of her since then, though Wikipedia and Facebook suggested a lot of activity on the West Coast, centering around the Montgomery Arts House in Malibu. Perhaps some of our California friends can fill us in on Newman’s extensive activities in the community. Oh, yes, she’s also been busy raising her five children, large families being a Newman tradition.
Full-page ads in Fanfare have announced the first in a series of CDs devoted to Newman’s own compositions, played by Malibu Coast Chamber orchestra and conducted by Scott Hosfeld, who is Newman’s husband. Included are concertos for both cello and viola with chamber orchestra. The current Fanfare (July/August 2014) contains a long interview with Newman and quadruple reviews of the new music, most of them very favorable. At least one review is now up for free viewing.
I guess we can expect to be hearing more from Ms. Newman from now on.
http://montgomeryartshousepress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Newman
http://www.fanfaremag.com/content/view/54677/10269/
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Either I skimmed past the Newman piece in FANFARE or else I haven't received that issue yet, so thanks for posting this thread, John. I've long had the CD you mention, plus another one with music for a children's story, if memory serves. I even spoke on the phone with Ms. Newman one time way back in the Eighties - a very nice person.
I just hopped over to Amazon, but I didn't find any listing yet for those new recordings. I did discover, however, that she's come out with a slew of albums while I wasn't looking, many with an outfit called the Malibu Coast Chamber Players. In fact, so many that I can't afford to buy all the ones I found most intriguing. So, apparently she's found something else with which to fill her time in addition to raising those five kids.
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A lovely person - we had her ensemble, the Viklarbo Ensemble, on a Bay Cities CD.
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I immediately hopped over to Amazon and got the ball rolling by ordering a few of these Maria/Malibu CD's. The first one I've listened to is "A HOLIDAY FESTIVAL of Music and Light." (Subtitle: "Myth, Mystery and Mysticism.) To my ears, she's followed wonderfully in her father's footsteps in terms of composing beautiful music for spiritual occasions, with worthy successors to the themes in such films as THE ROBE, THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, DAVID AND BATHSHEBA, etc. Although it's all her own original material, Ms. Newman has managed to write music whose mood and emotion immediately is recognizable as that of the holiday music we've known all our lives.
I highly recommend this disc, and happily look forward to exploring the others.
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Thanks, Jeff!
(How've you been?)
And thank you, Jon, wherever you are!
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