Artists
Composer
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Just as the English language makes use of foreign words to augment its own expressive power, Los Angeles-based composer Jonathan Sacks (b. 1950) draws from a wide range of styles and techniques to create music in an idiom that's entirely his own.
As the orchestrator of scores for dozens of popular Hollywood movies (what Sacks describes as a "great day job"), the composer's musical talents are not unknown to a wide audience. His credits include such films as Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), Seabiscuit (2003) and, most recently, The X Files: I Want To Believe (2008). However, his first-ever CD collection of his own music, 5th Season, shows a composer in command of a distinctly personal sonic language.
Reviews
Composer
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Örjan Sandred is a Swedish composer and is currently an Associate Professor in Composition at the University of Manitoba in Canada where he founded Studio FLAT, a studio for computer music. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, McGill University (Montreal) and at IRCAM (Paris). Among his teachers are Sven-David Sandström, Pär Lindgren, Magnus Lindberg, Daniel Börtz, Lars-Erik Rosell, Bill Brunson and Bruce Mather.
In 1999 Sandred worked as a Composer on Research in the Musical Representation Team at IRCAM. His research aimed at formalizing rhythm using computerized rule-based systems (a sub-branch of artificial intelligence). Many of Sandred's compositions are the result of his search for new methods of composition.
You will find music for many different ensemble types in Sandred's catalogue: several pieces for symphony orchestra, a concerto for Wind Controller and symphony orchestra, chamber music, music with live electronics and electroacoustic music.
Sandred's interest in new composition theories has associated him with international research groups. He is a member of the international musical research group PRISMA (Pedagogia e Ricerca Internazionale sui Sistemi Musicali Assistiti), an organization formed by composers and created inside the Centro Tempo Reale (Florence).
Sandred was teaching composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm between 1998 and 2005. In 2005 he moved to Canada to start his current position at the University of Manitoba. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities and research centers, including IRCAM (Paris, France), Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris (Paris, France), the Bartok Seminar (Szombathely, Hungary), the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki, Finland), McGill University (Montreal, Canada), Harvard University (Cambridge, USA) and other places. Sandred's music is performed worldwide.
More info: http://www.sandred.com
Reviews
Composer
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"Guilherme Schroeter displays a pianist and compositional talent that meets and carries forward the work of the great artists of the Romantic era. His work is fresh and new but simultaneously full of history in each and every bar, and the craftsmanship displayed in his scores is certainly the work of a master of his instrument."
- Bob Lord
Guilherme Schroeter was born May 16, 1960 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Guilherme comes from a traditional family of musicians: his mother is a pianist; his father and brother are violinists; and his aunt, Olga Maria Schroeter, a famous opera singer.
Guilherme began his studies in 1967 with his mother, whose devotion to music and the piano inspired Guilherme to begin practicing the piano create his first compositions. At age seven Guilherme was able to give brief performances, and four years later his first composition was performed. The composition, A Celebration for Christmas, composed for a trio of musicians, was performed by Guilherme on the piano, flute and violin, his brother, award-winning Brazilian violinist Harry Oscar Schroeter, also on the violin, and his sister, Eveline Schroeter, (the former Miss Brazil), on the flute.
Guilherme had his eyes fixed on being a composer at that young age of seven and has not looked back. At 12 years old, Guilherme performed the famous Chopin Ballade no.1 in G minor (Op.23). Russian pianist Sergei Dorensky was very impressed by his talent.
Guilherme earned his graduate degree in 1988 at the Saint Mary University of Music in Brazil. He has studied with a variety of internationally acclaimed pianists, including Larry Fountain, Jõrg Demus, Peter Rõsel and Czeslaw Kscinsky. His awards are equally numerous, winning his first at 16 in Brazil, and going on to compete in the semi-finals in the International Piano Competition IV in Montevideo, Uruguay.
He has performed all over the world, from his native Brazil to Seattle, Washington in the United States, where he performed his acclaimed 29 Preludes (Op. 1) with great success to a wide audience.
Guilherme has composed over 200 classical works, including five piano concertos. In addition to composing in well known forms (concerto, sonata, fantasy, suite, prelude, fugue, rhapsody, scherzo, theme and variations, impromptu, ballad, nocturne, and etude), he has also been known to compose in his own innovative forms. He composes his masterworks with poetic preludes that cover the spectrum of emotion in the footsteps of the masters that came before him. His immense library of compositions comes to nearly 400 works. He continues to draw acclaim from his peers around the world.
Guilherme is currently visiting Los Angeles, California, to promote his music in the United States, and is actively composing and performing throughout the area.
Reviews
Composer
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Gramophone Magazine hailed Kile Smith's Vespers—written for Piffaro, The Renaissance Band and the new-music choir The Crossing—as "spectacular." The Philadelphia Inquirer found it "breathtaking" and "ecstatically beautiful," The Buffalo News called it "altogether gorgeous and haunting," and the Philadelphia City Paper raved that it is "almost preternaturally beautiful." The Inquirer put the premiere in its "2008 Top Ten" list and the Broad Street Review called it "one of the major events of the music season." Audiophile Audition said, "this work is a masterpiece of the deepest kind ... Seldom do I come across a piece with such profoundly direct emotional appeal … easily one of the best releases of the year."
Kile's frequently performed music is praised by audiences and critics for its emotional power, direct appeal, and strong voice. He is Curator of the Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music in the Free Library of Philadelphia, co-host of Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection, and host of the contemporary American music show Now is the Time on WRTI 90.1 FM in Philadelphia.
Other recent works include Exsultet for horn and string orchestra, written for Jennifer Montone, Principal Horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra, American Spirituals, Book One for violin and piano, written for and recorded by David Kim, Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, American Spirituals, Book Two for Anne Martindale Williams, Principal Cello of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the string quartet The Best of All Possible Worlds, and The Bremen Town Musicians for narrator, violin, and cello. Where ?ames a word, written for The Crossing on the poetry of Paul Celan, was selected for performance at the 2009 Annual Conference of Chorus America.
Vespers was commissioned by Piffaro and released in 2009 on the Navona label. Kile has recently completed Two Laudate Psalms, a Lyric Fest commission for mezzo-soprano Suzanne DuPlantis and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir, for fall 2009 performances. The 2009-10 season will also see a performance of Exsultet, the world premiere of Now ys the tyme of Crystymas by the Virginia Chorale, and a commission for the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival.
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Composer
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Lewis Spratlan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2000, was born in 1940 in Miami, Florida. His music, often praised for its dramatic impact and vivid color, is performed regularly throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. A number of works have been toured widely in venues as far afield as Russia and Armenia. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Massachusetts Artists Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, Tanglewood, and the MacDowell Colony. His opera Life is a Dream won a top prize in the Rockefeller Foundation-New England Conservatory Opera Competition and appeared on the New York City Opera's Showcasing American Opera series in 2002; his Apollo and Daphne Variations won the New England Composers Orchestra Competition.
Among recent works are the one-act opera Earthrise, commissioned by San Francisco Opera and based on a libretto by Constance Congdon; Sojourner for ten players, commissioned for Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress; Zoom, for chamber orchestra, commissioned by the New York ensemble Sequitur; Wonderer, commissioned for the pianist Jonathan Biss by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust ; Shadow, commissioned by the cellist Matt Haimovitz; and Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra, a consortium commission by thirty saxophonists across the country. Spratlan has recently completed a chamber opera based on the life and work of the architect Louis Kahn. His work A Summer's Day was commissioned by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project with conductor Gil Rose.
His music is recorded on the Koch International Classical, Albany, Gasparo, Opus One, and Oxingale labels. From 1970 until his retirement in 2006 he served on the music faculty of Amherst College, and has also taught and conducted at Penn State University, Tanglewood, and the Yale Summer School of Music. He resides with his wife Melinda in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Reviews
Composer
view workRobert Stewart (b. 1918) has composed for a variety of soloists, orchestras, and ensembles. He has written music for the New York Brass Quintent, the National Symphony String Trio, the Stradivari String Quartet, and many others. His compositions have been performed across North America and Europe.
Over the years Stewart has received awards and commissions from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Music Teachers Association, the New College Festival, the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies, the International Symposium of Contemporary Music for Brass Instruments, and others.
Stewart served as Professor of Music at Washington and Lee University from 1954 to 1988 and President of both the Southeastern Composer’s League from 1968 to 1970 and the Virginia Humanities Conference.
Reviews
Composer
view workRobert Stewart (b. 1918) has composed for a variety of soloists, orchestras, and ensembles. He has written music for the New York Brass Quintent, the National Symphony String Trio, the Stradivari String Quartet, and many others. His compositions have been performed across North America and Europe.
Over the years Stewart has received awards and commissions from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Music Teachers Association, the New College Festival, the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies, the International Symposium of Contemporary Music for Brass Instruments, and others.
Stewart served as Professor of Music at Washington and Lee University from 1954 to 1988 and President of both the Southeastern Composer's League from 1968 to 1970 and the Virginia Humanities Conference.
Reviews
Clarinet
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Richard Stoltzman's virtuosity, technique, imagination, and communicative power have revolutionized the world of clarinet playing, opening up possibilities for the instrument that no one could have predicted. He was responsible for bringing the clarinet to the forefront as a solo instrument, and is still the world's foremost clarinetist. Stoltzman gave the first clarinet recitals in the histories of both the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, and, in 1986, became the first wind player to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize. As one of today's most sought-after artists, Stoltzman has been a soloist with more than a hundred orchestras as well as a recitalist and chamber music performer, innovative jazz artist, and prolific recording artist. A two-time Grammy Award winner, he has amazed critics and audiences alike in repertory spanning many musical genres.
Stoltzman's talents as a jazz performer as well as a classical artist have been heard far beyond his annual tours. He has performed and recorded with such classical, jazz, and pop greats as Emmanual Az, Yo-Yo Ma, Gary Burton, the Canadian Brass, Chick Corea, Judy Collins, Eddie Gomez, Keith Jarrett, the King's Singers, George Shearing, Wayne Shorter, Mel Tormé, and Spyro Gyra founder Jeremy Wall. Stoltzman frequently performs with his son Peter John Stoltzman, a talented classical and jazz pianist and composer.
Stoltzman graduated from Ohio State University with a double major in music and mathematics. He earned his Master of Music degree at Yale University while studying with Keith Wilson, and later studied with Kalmen Opperman at Columbia University. He makes his home in Massachusetts and is a passionate Boston Red Sox fan. He is also a Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef whose specialty is the Linzer Torte.
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