Program Notes by the Composer for EARLY SONGS

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Early SONGS by Laurie Conrad
with Soprano Louise McConnell (1946 - 1994)
and Baritone Graham Stewart

Recorded at David Arnay's Studio N in Ithaca, NY on January 27 and January
30, 1983

A Little History from the Composer:

Louise was singing jazz with her father's band when I met her, & some rock
with a local group. Her voice - was astounding. Twelve tone is very
difficult to sing - I found no one else, either in Ithaca or in N.Y.C. that
could find the pitches. Louise never learned to read music, but she
unerringly found the pitches. Whenever I wrote a new song, we would make a practice tape for her. She listened to the tape as she painted her paintings or washed the dishes or made dinner - & sang along. Once she knew a song, she never forgot it.

Louise's voice had a unique and beautiful richness and clarity. Her working
range was extraordinary, three full octaves at the time of the Studio N
recordings. (Second space bass clef "c" to high "c" above the treble clef
staff.) Sometimes I would write very low or high pitches in a song to see
just how far her range could stretch - one time I wrote a low "d" in bass
clef, & when she read through the song we both laughed - but she sang it.

All the songs on this CD, except the tonal tune "Do You Remember", were
taped at David Arnay's Studio N in Ithaca, NY over two days in January,
1983.

The tonal tune "So Many Lovers" was my first tonal tune, and was written for
a play directed by Carolyn Fellman at the First Street Playhouse. The other
tonal songs were written for various concerts and events. Most people enjoy
the tonal tunes the most. Louise sang anything I wrote for her, but the
twelve tone songs were our favorites. Especially "Morning" with clarinet.

The recording of "Do You Remember" was in 1993, not long after my car
accident and a year before Louise died. I was still using a cane. A key
stuck on the piano at Calf Audio, so some notes are missing in the piano
part. Louise had her second cancer operation the same week as my car
accident, and she had not really sung during the ten or so years she was in
California with her husband. Therefore, her voice was not technically what
it had been earlier. For me, the new quality of her voice and its minor
flaws add to the beauty of the song; the added emotional depth and quality of physical fragility now present in her voice seemed to better match the emotion and meaning of the words.

I only saw Louise once more after this recording. She died of cancer the
next year.

Program Notes by the Composer:

Being clairvoyant and clairaudient, I see and hear things that most people
are not consciously aware of. The texts to many of my songs reflect my inner experiences. Twelve tone, with its lack of a tonal center, seems to best portray other realms. I think of the tonal system, with all its beauty,
being more a natural expression of our physical world - it is based on the
lower partials of the overtone series. The chromatic notes that appear in
the twelve tone system appear very late in the overtone series, in fact they
are mainly inaudible to humans; therefore, in my mind, twelve tone has
always represented that which is unseen and unheard, i.e. realms available
only to clairvoyants and clairaudients.

In these early songs, I follow the rules of twelve tone very strictly,
especially in the two line songs. In my writing now, I break many rules if
not most of them - and sometimes abandon the twelve tone system altogether. So, for me, this disc outlines an important stage of my musical development, and one that I most likely will never return to. This might be difficult for a non-musician to understand, but I lived those sounds completely and thoroughly - and now my inner being is no longer there. To state in another way: to write in that mode now would not be a true reflection of my inner being.

The master tapes to all the songs except "Do You Remember" were misplaced or lost, so this disc was patched together from many different copies of the original master. My deep thanks to Al Grunwald who helped unearth tapes from his archives and for his restoring and remastering skills.

Laurie Conrad is a pianist and composer living in Ithaca, NY. Her music is
performed all over the world by professional performers and ensembles, as
well as on radio and television. Some of her honors include: Who's Who in
American Music, The International Who's Who in Music (Cambridge), Who's Who in American Pianists, The International Encyclopedia of Women Composers, The Dictionary of International Biography and Marquis' Who's Who in America.