Peter Child: Reviews: The Great Panjandrum -- Seven Songs for Young Listeners Composed 1989, for soprano and piano. Excerpt from Music by dads, kids opens Rockport festivalPatriot Ledger News Serviceby Joel Altman British-born composer Peter Child, professor of music at MIT, introduced his 1989 work for soprano and piano, "The Great Panjandrum" (subtitled "Seven Songs for Young Listeners"). The piece is dedicated to his daughter Madeleine. The text, from "Tail Feathers of Mother Goose," edited by Iona Opie, is at once childlike and ferociously demanding vocally. There are moments of onomatopoeia, picturesque conversation and vivid descriptive scenarios, and the music is extremely varied. The young New York-based soprano Janna Baty delivered the songs with striking stylishness and finesse, accompanied sensitively and alertly by Elaine Chew at the piano.
Rockport music fest does fathers proudthe Boston GlobeTuesday, June 17, 1997 Boston composer Peter Child's texts for his song cycle, "The Great Panjandrum," came from his daughter Madeleine's book of nursery rhymes; the seven wonderful songs are inspired by and dedicated to her. All proper children's songs demand vivid, uninhibited storytelling from the performers. The elegant Elaine Chew - Deveau's piano student at MIT, hence a sort of musical offspring - and soprano Janna Baty have the goods. Baty is a natural-born actress, but the flow of her big soprano voice is obstructed by throat tension, which sabotages her flamboyant style and fine musicality.
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