Julia Walker Jewell to Debut Commissioned Work at November 13 Meeting
A few weeks after our May Luncheon, the Thursday Morning Music Club Board met for an annual wrap-up meeting. The Club was in the unusual position of having awarded no scholarship prizes to high school students because there were no applicants last year. The Board was faced with a decision of what to do with scholarship money — let it sit for future scholarship awards or use it now for something else. The reasoning finally came down to this: TMMC’s mission is to support music in the community. For the last 100 years, we have held a scholarship competition for high school students and awarded prizes to support the winners’ future music endeavors. We can’t do that this year, so why not support music in some other way? The TMMC Board, with approval from Scholarship Fund donors, voted to commission a local musician to compose a piece as the closing bookend to our celebration of TMMC’s Centennial year. We were fortunate and honored to have Julia Walker Jewell accept the commission.
Julia is a pianist recently retired from Wrightsville Beach Methodist Church as music director, and currently on the faculty of Cape Fear Community College. She is also known by many as the former owner of Teds Fun on the River. Julia has composed all her life and has had pieces performed by the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra and other groups.
The piece, titled If Music is the Food of Love, Play On, is a Shakespeare quote, and was completed this summer. It will be performed at TMMC’s November 13 meeting by Julia Walker Jewell (piano), Beverly Andrews (piano), and Caitlin Andrews (soprano). Additional performer info will appear in the Events calendar page entry for November 13.
This is the first time that TMMC has commissioned a composition and is an exciting step for our club!
