Nancy Jean Van de Vate (néeHayes; December 30, 1930 – July 29, 2023) was an American-born Austrian composer, violist and pianist. She also used the pseudonyms Helen Huntley and William Huntley. She is known for operas such as All Quiet on the Western Front, and orchestral music such as Chernobyl and Journeys, including concertos like the Kraków Concerto for percussion and orchestra.
Van de Vate taught at several universities in the United States and led composers' organizations such as the Southeastern Composers League and the International League of Women Composers. In 1985, she moved to Vienna, where she taught and founded a CD company for new orchestral music together with her husband.
She lived permanently in Vienna from 1985.[1][2][9]
In 1990 she founded a CD company together with her husband Clyde A. Smith, Vienna Modern Masters, dedicated to new music for orchestra; she directed it after her husband's death.[8][9] She taught composition at the Institute for European Studies in Vienna (IES).[4] In 2010, the IES named her Composer-in-Residence.[12]
Personal life
In 1952, Van de Vate married Dwight Van de Vate Jr.[13] The couple had three children.[8] They later divorced. She later married Clyde A. Smyth,[9] who died of cancer in 1999.[14]
Van de Vate died on July 29, 2023, at age 92, at home in Vienna.[2][15][16]
Several of her compositions won international awards,[9] and were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize,[2] the orchestral work Chernobyl also for the Koussevitsky International Recording Award.[1][19] Her works have been performed internationally.[2]
Recordings
Many of Van de Vate's works were recorded by her CD company Vienna Modern Masters (VMM). A CD of orchestral works was produced in 1990, named after Distant Worlds, and played by the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Szymon Kawalla [pl][20] Arnold Whittall reviewed the album for Gramophone; he summarized: "Her orchestral music undoubtedly makes its presence felt, especially by means of densely dissonant climaxes whose weight and seriousness are appropriate to works with such grandly evocative titles", adding that it "lacks that distinctiveness and magnetism".[21]
Her Chernobyl and her Violin Concerto was recorded by the same performers on a 1988 CD of mainly works by Penderecki, titled after Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima.[22] Her Krakow Concerto became the title of a 1991 album by the same performers, including also her Katyn, Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, and Penderecki's Dies irae.[23]
Her vocal composition Cocaine Lil was recorded by Dietburg Spohr [de] and her ensemble belcanto, as the final track of a 1994 CD named after Hanns Eisler's Woodburry-Liederbüchlein.[24]
Opera
Hamlet[15] (2009) opera in five acts, after Shakespeare, recorded 2011, premiered by the University of Mississippi's Opera Theatre Group April 18, 2015
Where the Cross Is Made (2003) opera in three acts, Libretto based on the play by Eugene O'Neill[15] Premiere: 2005
Im Westen nichts Neues (2002) opera in three acts, libretto after the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, premiere: September 28, 2003, Theater Osnabrück,[4] directed by Thomas Münstermann[1]
Piece for Cello and Orchestra (1985), recorded in 1990[25]
Violin Concerto No. 1 (1985) in three movements, 26'[19] dedicated to the composer's husband, Clyde A. Smyth, first performed in Kraków on June 20, 1987, by Janusz Mirynsky and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Szymon Kawalla,[7] and recorded by them in 1988[25]
^ abcdefPetrik, Morgana (July 31, 2023). "Nancy van de Vate". Österreichische Gesellschaft für zeitgenössische Musik (in German). Retrieved August 2, 2023.
^Edwards, J. Michele; Lassetter, Leslie (2001). Pendle, Karin (ed.). "North America Since 1920". Women & Music: A History (Second ed.). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press: 328.
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