The UA School of Music presents its first Faculty Artist Series concert of the
season, featuring organist and composer Pamela Decker. This concert promises to
provide the best that organ music has to offer, from its early periods of
greatness to the present. The concert will include works by Buxtehude, J. S.
Bach, Near, as well as a world premiere of Decker's own work "life aromatic
with red-hot pizazz," for which she will be joined by mezzo-soprano guest
artist and UA alumna Christina Jarvis.
"life aromatic with red-hot pizazz" was composed in response to a commission
from the Astrobiology and the Arts program at the University of Arizona, with
Professor Richard Poss as liaison. The piece sets a large portion of Diane
Ackerman's poem "Ode to the Alien," from the book entitled "Jaguar of Sweet
Laughter (Vintage Books/Random House). The four movements in the work depict
different images evoked by the poetry. The work is for mezzo-soprano and organ,
with the third movement as an organ solo.
About her composition, Dr. Decker comments, "The images in the poetry have to do
with the origin and development of life forms, either on Earth or in other
realms, and the need for an open view and respectful acknowledgment that we
might not be alone in our universe. The poetry is colorful, powerful, and
evocative, and the work seeks to exploit the vast possibilities of the human
voice and the pipe organ in order to bring the energy of the words into musical
form."
Organist and composer Pamela Decker earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at
Stanford University and was awarded a Fulbright grant in 1980 to study organ
and composition in Luebeck, Germany. She has won prizes in national and
international competitions for organ and composition. Decker has performed
extensively as a concert organist throughout the United States, Canada and
Europe. She has ten compact discs in distribution (as performer or composer).
She has appeared as a recitalist at the National Convention of the American
Guild of Organists, and has performed as part of many other conferences and
festivals at national and international levels. Decker's compositions have been
performed in 18 countries by musicians from all over the world. She has been
published by Wayne Leupold Editions, C. F. Peters, Augsburg, Hinshaw Music,
Inc. and World Library Publications.
Mezzo-soprano Christina Jarvis received a BA in Music and MM in Vocal
Performance, as a student of Prof. Grayson Hirst, from the University of
Arizona, with a special emphasis in early music. She studied historic vocal and
harpsichord performance practice at workshops at home and abroad and with many
prominent scholars and groups. Jarvis has performed in theater, in concert, and
on television in the United States, France and Britain. In 2001?2002, Ms.
Jarvis also served as adjunct professor directing the University of Arizona?s
Collegium Musicum, and has sung with Tempe-based Ensemble Versailles. She
performs regularly in concerts presented by the Arizona Early Music Society and
serves on its board of directors. She directs the early music ensemble Musica
Sonora, and serves as choir director at Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church and
artistic director of the St. Andrew's Bach Society Summer Concert Series. She
is a member of the Group for Early Modern Studies at the University of Arizona,
and has a bustling private voice studio.