Bond, Victoria

Bond, Victoria, American conductor and composer; b. Los Angeles, May 6, 1945. Her father was a physician and an opera singer and her mother was a pianist. Following initial music instruction from her mother, she attended the Mannes School of Music in N.Y. and pursued piano training with Nadia Reisen-berg. Returning to Los Angeles, she studied composition with Dahl at the Univ. of Southern Calif. (B.M.A., 1968), and also worked with Paul Glass. Upon returning to N.Y., she pursued studies in composition with Sessions and in conducting with Morel, Ehrling, Karajan, Slatkin, and Blomstedt at the Juilliard School (M.M.A., 1975; D.M.A., 1977), where she also was an assistant to Boulez and the first woman to take a doctorate in orchestral conducting. She was an Exxon-Arts Endowment conductor with the Pittsburgh Sym. Orch. (1978–80), and concurrently was music director of the Pittsburgh Youth Orch. She was music director (1982–85) and artistic director (1986–88) of the Bel Canto Opera Co. in N.Y., and also was music director of the Empire State Youth Orch. in Albany (1984–86). In 1985–86 she was an asst. conductor at the N.Y. City Opera. From 1986 to 1995 she was artistic director of Opera Roanoke, and from 1989 to 1995 she was music director of the Roanoke Sym. Orch. In 1997 she became artistic advisor of the Wuhan Sym. Orch. in China and in 1998 artistic director of the Harrisburg (Pa.) Opera. As a guest conductor, she appeared widely in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, making special effort to champion out-of-the-ordinary repertoire, including scores by women composers.

Works

DRAMATIC: Opera: Gulliver, after Swift (1987; Louisville, March 17, 1988); Travels (1994; Roanoke, May 18, 1995, composer conducting); Mrs. Satan (1999–2000; N.Y., April 27, 2000). musical:Everyone is Good for Something (1986). ballet:Equinox (Philadelphia, Oct. 13, 1977); Other Selves (Lenox, Mass., Aug. 21, 1979); Sandburg Suite (1980); Great Galloping Gottschalk (1981; Miami, Jan. 12, 1982); Rage (1993). orch.:C-A-G-E-D for Strings (Cabrillo, Calif., Aug. 17, 1974); Equinox, suite from the ballet (1977; Dublin, July 7, 1982, composer conducting); Concertino (1980); The Frog Prince (Albany, N.Y., April 28, 1984, composer conducting); What’s the Point of Counterpoint? for Narrator and Orch. (1985); Ringing (Houston, July 4, 1986, composer conducting); Piano Concerto, Black Light (1988; rev. 1997); Urban Bird (San Francisco, April 3, 1993); Thinking Like a Mountain (Shanghai, Dec. 4, 1994, composer conducting); Variations on a Theme of Brahms (N.Y., Feb. 6, 1998). band:White on Black (1983). chamber: Duet for Flute and Viola (1969; Los Angeles, Oct. 25, 1970); Can(n)ons for Clarinet and Violin (Los Angeles, Oct. 25, 1970); Cello Sonata (Los Angeles, June 20, 1971); Conversation Piece for Viola and Vibraphone (N.Y., Aug. 15, 1975); Notes From Underground for Alto Saxophone and Piano (Kingsport, Tenn., Oct. 9, 1985); Hot Air for Woodwind Quintet (1991; Pittsburgh, March 6, 1992); Dreams of Flying for String Quartet (1994; Sofia, Sept. 3, 1995); Chi for Bamboo Flute and Zheng (N.Y., April 16, 1997); Moli Hua for Viola (1999). keyboard: piano:Potirion Sotiriu (1999). organ:D-Day (Roanoke, June 6, 1994). VOCAL: Suite aux Troubadours for Soprano and Instruments (Los Angeles, Oct. 25, 1970); From an Antique Land, song cycle for Soprano and Piano, after Millay, Shelley, and Hopkins (1972; N.Y., Nov. 10, 1976); Peter Quince at the Clavier for Soprano and Piano, after Wallace Stevens (N.Y., April 16, 1978); Tarot for Soprano, Chorus, and Percussion Ensemble (Fairmont, W.Va., April 17, 1978); Molly Manybloom for Soprano and String Quartet, after James Joyce (1990; Albany, N.Y., March 10, 1991); A Modest Proposal for Tenor and Orch. (1999; Cleveland, Feb. 7, 2000, composer conducting).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire