About the Music: 0 COOL IS THE VALLEY parallels the mood of the James Joyce poem. It is a colorful but quiet piece requiring meaningful melodic playing and sensitive phrasing. The opening motive generates the pastoral musical textures of two contrasting themes.
This work was commissioned by the Ohio Music Education Association and first performed by the Bowling Green State University Band, the composer conducting, in Columbus, Ohio on February 5, 1972.
Vincent Persichetti was born on June 6, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the age of 5 he began studying piano and subsequently organ, double bass, tuba, theory and composition. By the age of 11, he was performing professionally as an accompanist, radio staff pianist and church organist. In 1939 Persichetti became head of the composition department at Combs College and in 1941 was appointed head of the theory and composition departments at the Philadelphia Conservatory. In 1947 he joined the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music, assuming chairmanship of the composition department in 1963. Over the years, Vincent Persichetti has been accorded many honors by the artistic and academic communities, including Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Combs College and Bucknell University, an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Baldwin-Wallace College and honorary membership in numerous musical fraternities. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, a grant from the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities and one from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, of which he is a member. He has received the Juilliard Publication Award, the Blue Network.Chamber Music Award,Columbia Records Chamber Music Award, Symphony League Award and citations from the American Bandmasters Association and the National Catholic Music Educators Association.
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