This week we are proud to highlight Carol Worthey.

The day Carol was born, family friend Leonard Bernstein was in her house and made hamburgers in the shape of stars, declaring "This little girl's gonna be a star!" Not to make Lenny wrong, Carol began composing at age three and a half. A year later she was trying her hand at writing her music down. At age eleven and a half an Etude she wrote was performed in Carnegie Hall by pianist Vivian Rivkin. The following year Ms. Rivkin performed a Fantasia by Carol at the prestigious Hunter College Auditorium Artist Series.

With this encouragement, Carol began formal composition lessons at age thirteen, studying with a student of Aaron Copland, Grant Beglarian (later the Dean of the USC School of Performing Arts) in a glorious summer near Tanglewood at Merrywood School of Music, where the Music Director was John Harbison. The next summer Carol studied again at Merrywood with another Copland student, Karl Korte, and met Copland, Gunther Schuller and John Cage.

Carol Worthey (Carol Lee Symonds at the time) graduated Wheeler School with Honors and went to Barnard College, Columbia University, where she was transformed overnight from someone rather shy to a Campus Hero in her freshman year after winning First Prize in Composition at Columbia (renowned New York Times Music Critic Winthrop Sargent was one of the judges) for ballet music, thus saving the day for the Freshman Class in its "traditional battle" with the Sophomores known as Greek Games. Carol became a Music Major specializing in Composition, studying with Otto Luening, Vladimir Ussachevsky and Henry Cowell.

The summer after her Composition Prize, Carol ventured to Aspen Music Festival to study with Darius Milhaud, met Olivier Messaien and pianist Yvonne Loriod and had a song cycle "Confucian Odes" world-premiered at Aspen Tent. The following summer was spent at Dartmouth School of Performing Arts where Carol studied with the vibrant Vincent Persichetti of Juilliard, who declared, "You think like a composer." Carol was also mentored by Walter Piston and Elliot Carter at Dartmouth. At Columbia a string quartet by Carol was transformed into a ballet called "The Barren One" which was world-premiered at Minor Latham Playhouse. Graduating from Columbia in 1965, she was awarded Honorable Mention in the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship toward college teaching.

Carol married and for a time lived in an art colony in Mexico, San Miguel de Allende, where her works were performed at the Bellas Artes. She later settled in Los Angeles and studied arranging and orchestration at UCLA under Academy-Award winner Eddy Lawrence Manson. She continued honing her skills at Grove School of Music where she was the second woman to graduate from the prestigious and demanding Contemporary Composing and Arranging Program. It was there that she first wrote for full orchestra or Brass/Woodwind Band every week. The founder of the school, Dick Grove, publicly predicted at the Graduation that Carol would become the first famous woman composer in Hollywood, but Carol chose NOT to do film --- "I want people to recover the lost art of listening," she decided. However, in 1988 Carol was persuaded to do the score for a short film sponsored by George Lucas of Star Wars fame which was aired on HBO. Around this time Concert Pianist Mario Feninger performed Carol's work "Nocturne" in Italy, France and Canada, reporting that it was the most well-received work on his program.

Carol's imaginative skill in choral writing began to attract the attention of a number of local and international choirs. The Hollywood Chorale performed a semi-staged concert work, "Pop Cantata", which got a ten-minute standing ovation (which Carol recalls at will when discouragement ever sets in.) Her choral works have received seven World Premiers at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, including "Peace On Earth", simulcast on KCET-TV and KUSC-FM before an estimated audience of three and a half million. In 1999 Freiheit Singers performed "Creed" at an historic site, the beautiful but war-ravaged testament against war, Berlin's Memorial Church.

"I'm Lighting A Candle for Freedom", Carol's musical statement on behalf of tolerance, has been translated into French and Portuguese and in 2000 was sung in Paris, where Carol made her professional conductorial debut in a Benefit Concert sponsored by the United Nations on behalf of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (This song was created by her, lyrics and four-part arrangement, during a dream. She literally dreamt this song. Husband Ray's instructions were: "Write it down.")

In 1990 Carol Worthey won her second Composition Contest at the Inner City Cultural Center's "First Bar" Composers Competition --- a contest lasting four rounds --- with her "Fanfare for Joy & Wedding March" for Violin, Flute, Harp & Piano (written for her own marriage ten years earlier to Ray Korns, to whom she is still happily married). Carol has since been a Judge for their composing, songwriting and vocal competitions, a project she takes to heart, believing in the importance of encouraging new generations of talent. In 2002 Carol judged some extraordinary talent at the Piano and Composition Competitions put on by Armenian Allied Arts Association of Southern California.

In 2000 Carol became a professional speaker on Arts & Culture and her talks, "Turning Life into Art: How A Composer Works" and "Near-Forgotten Legacy: Six Women Composers of the Past", an illustrated lecture, were given at UCLA, USC, Cal Lutheran University and Borders Classical Music Society.

In 1988 she pulled off a wild challenge: Contacted at the last minute by a Producer/Director who had hired actors and built sets and costumes but had NO script OR music, Carol wrote the music, lyrics AND script in two weekends, just in time for the first scheduled rehearsal. "The Night Before Christmas" ran for five successful holiday seasons performed by the Los Angeles Children's Theatre and was featured at the Ovation Award ceremony (L.A.'s Tony) in 1991 and on "Entertainment Tonight". Additional performances were sponsored by celebrities at local children's hospitals. Two casts performed this at various times: Hearing actors with sign language "signers" and deaf actors with "speakers" at the side.

In 2001 Carol participated in a Los Angeles art exhibit called A Community of Angels, her first venture in integrating music and visual art. This wasn’t the first time she has taken up a paintbrush. (As a child prodigy in art as well as in music, Carol was admitted at age five to adult classes at Rhode Island School of Design where she studied for seven years.) "Angel of Music" was displayed at the Music Center in Los Angeles where it was seen by over half a million people from around the world. The music by Carol is activated at the press of a button and is designed to embody the healing qualities of music and to inspire children of all ages to participate in music. Carol painted the front with colorful musical instruments and decorated the painted “feathers” in back with the names of 160 great composers of the past. She orchestrated the song using the instruments painted on it so that it’s educational. "Angel of Music" was voted Most Popular statue in the exhibit. A music video filmed by Randy Tobin can be seen/heard at her website www.carolworthey.com.

Recently Carol was commissioned by renowned Cellist Joyce Geeting (protégé of cello great Janos Starker) to compose Elegy for Cello & Orchestra, a one-movement concerto world-premiered at St. Martin in the Fields, London in Spring of 2003 to rousing acclaim. Elegy is a musical enactment of the events of 9-1-1 and is her heartfelt tribute to those lost and those left behind: It is designed to heal. Since its premiere, Elegy has been performed numerous times, including the Seventh American Cello Congress, and in Germany. Elegy is featured on Ms. Geeting’s newly released CD “Soul Stirring” along with works by Johannes Brahms and Max Bruch.

Music remains Carol's primary language and (aside from people) her greatest passion. Composer, painter, lyricist, poet, arts lecturer and humanitarian, Carol Worthey firmly believes that the greatest artwork one can create is a life well-lived --- a life that makes a difference in a troubled world. She has certainty that each and every person is creative in some way, however unexplored. Through music Carol Worthey aspires to help release the listener's creative participation, to have listener AND performer feel more ALIVE.

Podcast hostess: Sandy Hedgecock
All music and visuals are used by permission.