It is not often that we get to hear music by Canadian composers - most of those I am aware of have been electro-acousmaticians, very good ones - and so I was wondering if anybody heard her Excursion Ballet Suite, the last item on last night's Through the Night. Sadly there does not appear to be a youtube of this work - the nearest description of which I would make would be a sort of Canadian Jacques Ibert - but the breathless résumé of her presented by the young man in the link below, complete with now-obligatory bookshelved backdrop, suggests a more complex, well-rounded personality, somebody who came and studied under Vaughan Williams and was acquainted with the leading lights of her (and my late father's) age, from Copland to N. Boulanger. As much as one of the first Canadian women composers of undoubted note (no pun intended) as in her own right, she is in my opinion well deserving of inclusion in our pantheon.
The other youtubes of Ms Coulthard's music are well worth investigating.
The other youtubes of Ms Coulthard's music are well worth investigating.
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