Canary Lee Burton (born September 16, 1942) is an American keyboardist, composer and writer.
Biographyedit
Burton was born on September 16, 1942, in Richmond, California. In 1972 she moved to Moscow, Idaho, to attend the University of Idaho[1] where she was one of the first women to be accepted into the music composition program.[2] After passing her third-year piano exam, she left to form her own rock ’n roll band and play in various rock and jazz ensembles. She attracted followers through her gigs, but she came to find performance unfulfilling and turned to composition.
She relocated to Washington D.C., where she worked at WPFW Pacifica radio for three years. She then moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where she established her own contemporary music radio show, The Latest Score, on WOMR in Provincetown.[2] While founding and playing in various rock and jazz ensembles, Burton continued her studies—with Kevin Toney in jazz in 1980, with David Sussman in 1988, with John Zielinski in composition from 1990 to 1992, and briefly with Rodney Lister at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1995.[3] She worked as a music teacher from 1996 to 2000.
Selected pieces of her work were included in the published collection Music of Living Composers, compiled by the Campbell University piano professor and composer Betty Wishart in 1997. In 2013, Southern River was among the winners of the annual Search for New Music competition of the International Alliance for Women in Music.
Burton's works have been performed internationally.[4] Her music, with information about her work, is archived in the Wellfleet Public Library in Massachusetts and in Italy in the library of the Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica.[5] She is the recipient of an ASCAP Plus Award, which supports ASCAP members whose works have a unique prestige value for which adequate compensation would not otherwise be received. Some of her music from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, may be heard online and the sheet music downloaded.[6]
Selected worksedit
Sometime After One (1982), for piano
Gaia Morning, Gaia Noon, Gaia Night (1987), for piano
^See http://www.donneinmusica.org Archived February 28, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
^Burton's works from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s are listed at "Musicaneo.com".
^Premiered as 'The Broken Record' by Max Lifchitz, October 12, 2008; see https://www.northsouthmusic.org/calendar2009.asp.
^ abSee http://www.sai-national.org/home/ComposersBureau/BurtonCanaryL/tabid/280/Default.aspx Archived January 17, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
^Aaron Larget-Caplan premiered the piece in 2011; see https://alcguitar.com/about.php. Concert poster Archived December 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine from http://www.seabirdstudio.com/guitar
^Commissioned by Daniella Baas. Premiered by Elisabeth Deletaille, violin, Bruno Ispiola, cello, and André Grignard, piano. See http://www.sai-national.org/home/ComposersBureau/BurtonCanaryL/tabid/280/Default.aspx Archived January 17, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
^Listed in Pan Pipes: Sigma Alpha Iota Quarterly, 2006. Premiered by Daniella Baas, November 2007; see http://www.sai-national.org/home/ComposersBureau/BurtonCanaryL/tabid/280/Default.aspx Archived January 17, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
^Reviewed January 2016 at http://skopemag.com/2016/01/25/canary-burton-raggity-three-step
^Reviewed May 2013 at http://skopemag.com/2013/05/15/canary-burton-piano-music-from-cape-cod
^Reviewed July 2014 at http://skopemag.com/2014/07/01/canary-burton-jazz-bird and by Rick Jamm at http://jamsphere.com/reviews/canary-burton-jazz-bird-is-the-kind-of-music-that-triggers-nostalgia.
Further readingedit
Burns, Kristine Helen. Women and Music in America Since 1900: An Encyclopedia. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2002, I: 312.
"Canary Burton." Interview in Music Notez, http://www.muzicnotez.com/magazine/interviews/artist-interviews/canary-burton/.
Fanfare Magazine, March/April 2012: 272.
Pan Pipes: Sigma Alpha Iota Quarterly, 94–95 (2002): 24–25.