The past few months have seemed depressingly full of deaths, including some of the grand figures of our time. But sadder still is when we lose a wonderful musical voice far too soon. I just learned over at NewMusicBox that the highly talented composer and pianist Jennifer Fitzgerald lost her life to cancer just a few days before Christmas. Only 32 years old, but already crafting some really beautiful, exciting music… One of the strange artifacts of the Internet age is that a person can leave and yet appear to be around through their webpages, busy and happy, like nothing at all had happened yet. Jennifer’s own website still has news of the recent NYC performance of her opera-in-progress, Judgement of Paris, and her composition list includes a number of pieces that were in the works. Both from her official site, as well as her Myspace page, you can hear excerpts of her music, that show all kinds of command and promise of even more good to come. I never met Jennifer; but through her music I’ll never forget her, either.
