A Rhapsody in Green

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

As permanent composer-in-residence at the First Church Congregational in Cambridge, Patricia Van Ness has collaborated with organist and music director Peter Sykes on many musical works, both within and outside of the 11 Garden St. setting. Sykes, who holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and Concordia University, Montreal and is a faculty member (and former chair of the Early Music department) at the Longy School of Music and the School of Continuing Education at the New England Conservatory of Music, invited the composer, violinist and poet to join the church’s choir in 1996.

Van Ness, who holds a degree in violin performance from Wheaton College Conservatory, is also Resident Composer at the Boston Athenaeum and has been an invited lecturer at the Harvard University Department of Music and Boston University's Core Curriculum Program. A board member of the Cambridge Society for Early Music, she has received support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Boston Foundation, the Alfred Nash Patterson Foundation, ASCAP Standard Awards, Meet The Composer, and the New England Biolabs Foundation, and is a member of American Composers Forum, the International Alliance of Women in Music, ASCAP, and the American Music Center. Her achievements have included Special Recognition for the Barlow International Competition for Choral Music, and finalist for the Oxford University Barbara Johnston International Prize for Composers.

To add to her distinctions, she has been chosen from a field of 19 applicants to create a musical work which reflects the history and aesthetics of Boston's Franklin Park, to be premiered there this summer by the Boston Landmarks Orchestra. The BLO, with Charles Ansbacher as conducter, joined the American Composers Forum Boston and the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Park ARTS Program as part of The Emerald Necklace Commissioning Project, which seeks to archive compositions written for Greater Boston-area parks.

"I love the Landmarks Orchestra's mission,” said Van Ness. “I am delighted and honored to have been chosen.” Her piece, which combines Spanish-Flamenco and Baroque influences with quick violins, trumpets, and percussion, is near completion. “I look forward to this summer when I'll be able to interact more directly with both the orchestra and the people in the community surrounding the park," she added.

Van Ness’ church compositions celebrate religious seasons such as Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and All Saints Day. “It is a rich and rewarding experience to be able to work in an ongoing manner with the choir and with Peter,” she said, likening it to a sound laboratory of sorts, where she is able to continually test ideas and theories. The choir, directed by Sykes, performed Van Ness’ cantata Advent on a recent hour of WBUR’s The Connection.

Her church music is largely choral; the Franklin Park commission is by contrast designed for a symphony orchestra. “My major influences are Baroque, Renaissance and medieval music, and this piece is no exception,” she said. “There are melodies, canons, variations, and chant.” The work encompasses three movements, with each designed to reflect a different aspect of her impressions of the Park.

“My hope is that, when complete, it will show the Park as a jewel, in keeping with Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, with each movement as a facet of the jewel,” she said. “Franklin Park is a beautiful and diverse park and it is wonderful to be given this compositional opportunity.”

The Emerald Necklace Commissioning Project is supported by the Parks Department, Landmarks Orchestra, and the American Composers Forum Boston, this project receives funding from The Boston Foundation Arts Fund. The ACFB’s mission is to sponsor composers though grants, commissions and performance programs. In its joining together of composers and communities, it aims to inspire community interest in new music as it fosters future generations of composers, musicians and audiences.