Stephanie Ann Boyd

Yellow—-If you would ask me what my favorite color is, I would say blue, then purple, then red, then green and all the shades in between—never yellow—except in a flower. My favorite flowers are yellow. Maybe because it is that invitation of spring. The yellow reminds me of the sun: warmth, smiles, happiness.

When a daffodil appears out of its green stem, the energy is glorious. No, dainty flowers there. Strength and beauty. Unexpected with a unique shape. A combination of strong lines and softer edges.

In the same way that the daffodil matches my quirky side, the yellow rose is completely sentimental. Lovely, unexpected, and the perfect flower of friendship. The yellow rose was the favorite flower of one of my early music teachers. When all the young girls swooned over red roses, she said she always preferred the yellow. I don’t know if she was trying to tell me something else at that moment, but I remember how I felt. The yellow rose was unique, special, warm, and unexpected. I felt like she was telling me that I didn’t have to be the popular red rose. I would be treasured by those important few who saw the beauty in a rose that was different. From that moment on, I loved yellow roses, but I rarely shared these feelings.

I kept it a secret I think because I wanted to see who shared this preference. Who else loves the yellow rose? When I receive those flowers, I then know this secret bond. A coincidence, maybe? But, to me, they will always be special.

Yellow Rose Program Notes

Holly once received a bouquet of yellow roses, each bloom containing layer upon layer upon layer of petals. And after their turn as live, luminous flowers, Holly hung the bouquet to dry. To this day, she feels that "of all the bouquets I've ever received this is the one I most want to keep".

For my own part, my grandfather proposed to my grandmother with a yellow rose and in turn that's how my father also proposed to my mother. So when Holly—who by now has become such a dear friend and confidant as well as a master interpreter of my work, decided to commission this piece—I couldn't imagine an artist and a soul I'd rather write this piece with. I'd like to think that Yellow Rose is a symbol of our mutual trust in each other to hold dearly these tender, personal memories.

Yellow Rose is 4 minutes long, with its lush chords inseparable from the melody like all these golden petals overlapping each other in a thick spiral that continues to its core. Long, generous runs lend a fluid and airy texture at the prelude's middle, tones wafting up the keyboard like the rose's perfume teasing the nose of the bouquet holder. The prelude ends dry and thin, echoes of the melody now as lonely tones in the highest octave while pedal tones hold archaic resonance below.

Stephanie's Biography

Michigan-born, Manhattan-based American composer Stephanie Ann Boyd (b. 1990) writes melodic music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles. Her work has been performed in nearly all 50 states and has been commissioned by musicians and organizations in 37 countries. Boyd’s five ballets include works choreographed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Lauren Lovette, Ashley Bouder, NYCB soloist Peter Walker, and XAOC Contemporary Ballet’s Eryn Renee Young. Eero, a ballet commissioned by Access Contemporary Music and Open House New York, was written for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. Stephanie’s music has been praised as “attractive lyricism” (Gramophone), “[with] ethereal dissonances” (Boston Globe), “[music that] didn’t let itself be eclipsed” (Texas Classical Review), “arrestingly poetic” (BMOP), and “wide ranging, imaginative” (Portland Press Herald).

Boyd’s music has been commissioned and performed by concertmasters of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony, the Faroe Islands Symphony, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal players in the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.  Her music has been commissioned and/or played by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the New England Conservatory Philharmonic, the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, the New York Jazzharmonic, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Roosevelt University Orchestra, the Eureka Ensemble, the JVL Festival Orchestra, the Texas State University Symphony, the Cremona International Academy Orchestra, the UW La Crosse Symphony, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, and the El Paso Youth Symphony. Her work has been presented by the Thalia and her Sisters concert series, the Moirae Ensemble, and Sandcastle New Music in New York City; Æpex Contemporary Music in Michigan; Juventas New Music, Collage New Music, and the New Gallery Concert Series in Boston; Cincinnati Soundbox, and others. Stephanie has worked with conductors such as Andrew Litton, Lina Gonzales, Earl Lee, Nathan Aspinall, Cliff Colnot, Gill Rose, Julian Benichou, Kristo Kondakci, and Kevin Fitzgerald. The 2020/2021 season includes commissions from the Wyoming Symphony, Astral Artists with cellist Tommy Mesa, violinist Megan Healy, pianists Lara Downes, Lise de la Salle, Marta Aznavoorian, Lucille Chung, Susie Maddocks, Adrienne Park, Diane Kaztenburg Braun and Music Street, Sarah Bob and the New Gallery Concert Series, Holly Roadfeldt, Marianne Parker, Eunbi Kim, the Kurganov-Finehouse Duo, and others. This season also includes performances by the Lincoln Trio, Juventas New Music, Jennifer Reason, Lisa Pegher, Shouthouse, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, including concerts at the Kaufman Center, the Boston New Music Festival, the Festival of New American Music, Pianoforte in Chicago, live on Chicago’s WFMT radio station, and elsewhere. 

Recent commissions include a new violin concerto for Kurt Nikkanen and the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra, a piece for River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, a ballet for the Ashley Bouder Project, a mass for women’s choir, soprano solo and orchestra for The Eureka Ensemble, and a piece for the Chicago College of Performing Arts Wind Ensemble. Her work has been performed in venues such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall, the Martha Graham Studio, Singapore Symphony’s Esplanade Hall, The Joyce Theater, Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Midwest Conference, Poisson Rouge, Tenri Cultural Center, Ganz Hall, the DiMenna Center, and the TWA Hotel.  Boyd has made ballets with New York City Ballet principal dancer Lauren Lovette (Red Spotted Purple commissioned by the Ashley Bouder Project, 2018), New York City Ballet principal dancer Ashley Bouder (Out of the Dust made at NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, 2019), New York City Ballet soloist Peter Walker (Eero, commissioned by Access Contemporary Music and Open House New York for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK, 2019), and choreographer Eryn Renee Young (EARTH, commissioned by the Eryc Taylor Dance Company, 2019). Upcoming projects include new ballets for NYC's Satellite Collective and XAOC Contemporary Ballet. Stephanie has given her talk “Two Steps Out the Door: a tough love, get-over-yourself guide to engineering a career right out of music school” at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, the Longy School of Music of Bard College, the University of Northern Colorado, the University of Arkansas, the University of Central Florida, Texas State University, Northwest Arkansas Community College, and others, and has given talks on her work at the New Music Gathering conference and the Continuum Music Festival in Memphis. Stephanie especially believes in instilling agency and sparking initiative in young people, and as such has given talks on creativity at high schools in Wyoming, New Mexico, Michigan, and Hawaii. 

Stephanie was the 2016-18 Composer in Residence for the Eureka Ensemble in Boston, the 2013/14 Collage New Music Fellow, and has had composition residencies at summer festivals in Italy, Canada, and the US. Boyd has taught composition privately for ten years and her students have been accepted into the music schools at the University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, Indiana University, UC Boulder, Michigan State University, and others. She is a recipient of the Donald Martino Award for Excellence in Composition and is a two-time recipient of the CCPA Vector Award, and has won numerous grants from the Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy. She holds degrees from Roosevelt University and New England Conservatory (with honors). Boyd was one of the last violin students of renowned pedagogue John Kendall.  Boyd is a member of the Iceberg New Music composers collective. Her catalog is published by TRN Music and FEMOIRE. A critic for American Record Guide and I Care If You Listen, Boyd lives in Manhattan. For concert premieres and red carpet appearances, she is usually dressed by MILLY creator Michelle Smith or Boston-based designer Sasha Parfenova.  Stephanie intensely adores jazz big band screaming trumpets, the smell of camp fires and old cars, that moment when planes leave the ground during takeoff, contemporary fiction, and her cat Bruce.   

More about Stephanie here.