Presenting District: Rogue Valley
Presenter: Deborah Cleaver
Program Description: In Decoding a Baroque Score, we will analyze genre, articulation, ornamentation, and rhythmic expression in works of beginning, intermediate, and advanced pieces from the Baroque era. Special emphasis will be placed on how to communicate to students an approach for learning a new work. Because the notation in Baroque music is the least informative of all the styles, we need concepts to understand when and why we articulate, appropriate ornamentation, and how to decipher the complex rhythms.
About Deborah Cleaver: Deborah Ingram Cleaver holds a Master of Music degree in piano performance from Boston University where she studied with the renowned pianist and pedagogue Leonard Shure. After finishing her degree, she worked closely with Shure as his teaching assistant at New England Conservatory.
Ms. Cleaver has also spent many years studying the performance practice of the Baroque and Classic periods with such luminaries as Sandra Rosenblum, Edward Parmentier, and Elisabeth Wright. Her broad interests have resulted in lectures for universities and music teachers’ organizations, ranging from the expressive aspects of Baroque performance practice to the correlation between Romantic literature and music.
Ms. Cleaver teaches at Lewis and Clark College and Reed College as well as in her private studio. She also organizes seminars three times each year for the Portland/Golandsky Institute community and is a past president of OMTA Portland District. She has been a faculty member of the Golandsky Institute since 2005 and teaches at their annual Summer Symposium. Previous teaching positions have been at Willamette University, St. Andrews College, and the South Shore Conservatory in Boston.
An avid performer, she has appeared with the Fear No Music Ensemble, the DeRosa Chamber Players, Cascadia Composers, Friends of Rain, and the Makrokosmos Project. She has had performances aired on the classical music programs Played in Oregon and All Classical Portland. In addition, she has given lectures, workshops, and recitals at Portland State University, Eastern Washington University, and for Oregon and Washington music teachers’ associations, and is a frequent adjudicator throughout the Northwest.