Rhapsodic Poem by Dewey Owens

[Bill Van Patten]

Hello all,

I’m looking for any program note information about Dewey Owens’s Rhapsodic Poem for Harp and Organ. It’s a great piece that doesn’t seem to be played very often. I’m doing it on an upcoming harp and organ recital, but I can’t find anything about why Dewey wrote it, who played it first, or a recording. If anybody knows anything about this piece, or has played it before, I’d really appreciate your sharing what you know.

Thanks!

[MusikFind1]

Dewey Owens Rhapsodic Poem for Harp and Organ
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : Lyra Music Co., ©1980.
$18.00 [price subject to change]
http://www.lyramusic.com/Rhapsodic-Poem-for-Harp-Organ_p_1589.html

[Not listed on the current website Lyra/Vanderbilt
http://www.vanderbiltmusic.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SRCH ]

Manuscript:
http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/findingaids/owens_dewey.html
Box 7.
Archives and Special Collections Library, Vassar College Libraries
Copyright infomation:
Date of Publication: May 19, 1980
Date of Creation: 1979
Copyright Claimant:Lyra Music Company

“The full score of this work is published with organ and harp together. The harp has a separate part. This one movement work marked moderato, alternates dialogue passages between the two instruments with ensemble work. Organ part is on three staves with indications for a solo stop. Medium. Duration 5.00”
Catalogue of Music for Organ and Instruments By James Laster
——-
The Lafayette Square Duo, composed of Michael Lodico on the organ and Rebecca Anstine Smith on the harp, will play —– and “Rhapsodic Poem” by Dewey Owens (1925-2006) at Crypt Church at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sunday July 7, 2013.

[Bill Van Patten]

Thank you so much for this information! I was also fortunate enough to locate and speak with Cally Proios Welsh, for whom Rhapsodic Poem was written in 1962. She was one of Dewey Owens’s earliest students at his first teaching job at Holy Family Academy in Bayonne, NJ, and he wrote the piece to commemorate her graduation from high school. Rhapsodic Poem was originally scored for harp and orchestra, and dedicated “To Cally Proios and the Holy Family Academy Orchestra”. Dewey made the harp and organ reduction sometime in the 1970s, and in 1980 Lyra Music published that reduction (minus the inscription’s reference to the school orchestra).

Thanks again!

[erin-wood]

I haven’t heard this piece. Sounds wonderful. What else are you playing on the recital?

[Author]

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