Maurice Wright: Phoenix
Chelsea Meynig, flute
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The soloist, reacting to a terrible series of events, wants the world to begin anew, a fresh start. To this end she serenades the spirit of the Phoenix, thinking that if the Phoenix would rise, it would mark the end of the time of suffering and usher in a new age of beauty and understanding.
At first the Phoenix shuns her, even ridiculing her from its resting place. But the bird is affected by her pleading, and welcomes her into the underground chamber. Emboldened, the soloist insistently implores the Phoenix, who emits a beautiful shriek and rises on the morning breeze.
Sadly, the Phoenix takes the youth-spirit from the soloist, who remains on the earth, wiser for her sacrifice.
CHELSEA MEYNIG performs in the Philadelphia area with Symphony in C, Philadelphia Oratorio Society and the Harmony for Peace ensemble. Most recently, Ms. Meynig completed a summer tour with the ensemble PianoFlautée premiering and recording the Sonata for Flute and Piano which she commissioned from Maurice Wright. She appeared as soloist in the flute concerto Espejismos! on the recording Music for the Moving Imagination by Mexican-American composer Carlo Nicolau. A student of David Cramer, Ms. Meynig received a Master’s Degree from Temple University, where she played principal flute in the Temple Symphony Orchestra and was a member of the New School Woodwind Quintet.
In 2014 Ms. Meynig graduated from Shenandoah Conservatory with a degree in Flute Performance where she studied with Mr. Jonathan Snowden, one of Britain's premier flutists, as well as Dr. Frances Lapp Averitt. She was Principal Flute with the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra from 2012-2014. Her previous primary teacher was Margaret Newcomb. Ms. Meynig first played Principal Flute in Carnegie Hall at the age of 17 with an honors youth orchestra. She has toured with ensembles in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and Spain. She has participated in festivals and master classes in the United States, London and Aruba with William Bennett, Lorna Mcghee and Gary Schocker.
MAURICE WRIGHT's musical life began as a percussionist, when he performed a solo on a toy glockenspiel in a one-room schoolhouse in Buckton, Virginia. Shortly thereafter, he began to study piano, and to experiment with electricity, using parts from discarded telephones. He began to compose, and to play the trombone.
At age 13, his family moved to Tampa, Florida. While studying with Douglas Baer, Principal Trombonist of the Tampa Philharmonic, Wright spent a year with the Tampa Police Dance Band, rehearsing with armed musicians who performed throughout the state. He experimented with tape recorders, and studied FØRTRAN programming. At the urging of a musician friend, he applied to Duke University.
A Mary Duke Biddle Scholar at Duke, he graduated Magna Cum Laude and continued composition study at Columbia University, from which he received his doctorate in 1988. At Columbia, he studied electronic music with Mario Davidovsky and Vladimir Ussachevsky, computer music with Charles Dodge, instrumental composition with Chou Wen-Chung and Charles Wuorinen, music theory with Jacques-Louis Monod, and opera composition with Jack Beeson.
Outstanding ensembles and soloists have performed his work, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Emerson String Quartet, and the American Brass Quintet. The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Independence Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts have recognized and supported his work. He is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Music Studies at Temple University's Boyer College Of Music and Dance.
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