Diane Thome, "Anais"

-- LINER NOTES --

DIANE THOME
ANAIS
Diane Thome, piano; Michael Finckel, cello; tape part realized at the SUNY, Binghamton electronic music studio

DIANE THOME (b. Pearl River, New York, 1942) received her musical education at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, where she was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Music. Among her teachers were Dorothy Taubman in piano, and Robert Strassburg, Darius Milhaud, Roy Harris, Alexander Urijah Boscovich and Milton Babbitt in composition. Her compositions have been presented in Europe and throughout the United States under important auspices. Her collaborative works include Night Passage, an environmental theatre piece, as well as compositions for dance and film. She has received many grants and awards including one from the National Society of Arts and Letters and two from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a member of the National Council of the American Society of University Composers and Co-chairperson of the Northwest Region. She has taught at Rutgers University, the State University of New York at Binghamton and is currently (1980) on the faculty of the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle.

ANAIS, for tape, violoncello and piano, was composed at the invitation of cellist Michael Finckel during the summer of 1976. The tape portion of the work was synthesized in the analog studio at the State University of New York in Binghamton while Thome was working under a SUNY Research Grant. The piece is dedicated to the memory of the writer Anais Nin, who died shortly before its premiere in March, 1977, in Los Angeles.