Composition at the Peabody
Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
News Archives
Ruby Fulton attended the Conductor/Composer Workshop at the 2008 Cabrillo Festival
Excellence in Teaching Award" for 2007-08
Christopher Rouse: Composer-in-Residence
Amy Beth Kirsten: 2008-9 Rome Prize
Christopher Theofanidis' The Refuge
Amy Beth Kirsten: ACO orchestra reading
Angel Lam: Carnegie Hall Commission
Masterworks of the New Era - Volume Ten
Hersch: The Vanishing Pavilions
Christopher Theofanidis nominated for classical composition GRAMMY award.
Elisenda Fábregas upcoming performances
Michael Hersch: "Ashes of Memory"
Chris Whittaker: York Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Rouse joins Peabody as Distinguished Composer-in-Residence
May 7, 2008, Baltimore, MD: The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is pleased to
announce that internationally acclaimed composer and Baltimore native Christopher Rouse has been
appointed Distinguished Composer-in-Residence at the Peabody Conservatory. Rouse is one of
America’s most prominent composers of orchestral music. Commencing in the 2008-09 academic year,
Rouse will give a number of master classes to Peabody composition students. He will also give an
annual presentation on his work, which will be open to the public.
Christopher Rouse is one of today’s most celebrated composers. His works have been heard around the
world and have received many of music’s most prestigious honors, including a Pulitzer Prize and a
Grammy Award. The Baltimore Sun has written: “When the music history of the late 20th century is
written, I suspect the explosive and passionate music of Rouse will loom large.”
Born in Baltimore in 1949, Rouse graduated from Oberlin Conservatory and Cornell University,
numbering among his principal teachers George Crumb and Karel Husa. His music has been played by
every major orchestra in the U.S. and numerous ensembles overseas including the Berlin Philharmonic,
the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney and Melbourne Symphonies, the London
Symphony, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has written for soloists including Yo-Yo Ma,
Carol Wincenc, Evelyn Glennie, Dawn Upshaw, and Emanuel Ax. Christopher Rouse’s
accomplishments as a composer were honored in 2002 with his election to the American Academy of
Arts and Letters.
“I am excited that Dr. Rouse is able to spend some time with our composition students,” said Peabody
Director Jeffrey Sharkey. “He is a world renowned composer and teacher, living in our midst in
Baltimore, and we are all delighted that he is able to work with us at Peabody.”
Rouse lives in Baltimore and has a long history with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). In
1986, he was appointed the BSO’s first composer-in-residence and continued to serve as the
symphony’s new music advisor from 1989 through 2000. Rouse’s Symphony No. 1 (1986),
commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and winner of the prestigious Kennedy Center
Friedheim Award, was rated by the Boston Globe as “probably the most completely successful
symphonic composition yet written by an American composer of his rising generation.” A CD devoted
to Rouse’s music features BSO Music Director and Peabody Distinguished Faculty Artist Marin Alsop
leading the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Gorgon, Iscariot, and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Trombone
Concerto. Alsop also conducts on Passion Wheels, a new recording containing Rouse’s Concerto per Corde,
Rotae Passionis, Ku-Ka-Ilimoku, and Ogoun Badagris. The CD has won “Best of the Year” designation for
2000 from both Gramophone magazine and Fanfare magazine.
Ruby Fulton attended the Conductor/Composer Workshop at the 2008 Cabrillo Festival for New Music in Santa Cruz, CA. Her orchestra piece "Road Ranger Cowboy" was rehearsed and performed by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, under the baton of three separate workshop conductors who were coached by Marin Alsop and Gustav Meier. Mentor composers included Michael Daugherty and John Corigliano.
faculty McGregor Boyle's "Midway Inlet" for clarinet and computer was accepted at SEAMUS, this year at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and is scheduled to be performed April 3rd.
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: November 12, 2007
The New York Times
Christopher Theofanidis' new opera-oratorio, The Refuge
HOUSTON, Nov. 11 — With brickbats flying over border issues, the Houston Grand Opera put immigration center stage this weekend in a dramatic outreach to the more than 1 million foreign-born residents here in the nation’s fourth largest city.
The musical and civic event was “The Refuge,” the company’s 36th world premiere and a commission celebrating not only the 20th anniversary of its Wortham Theater Center but also Houston, where more than one out of five people “are not from here,” in a signature phrase of the new work.
In an elegiac finale, the singers, including five young Congolese brothers new to the opera stage, proclaim: “We are you. Our stories are your stories.”...
One was Marie Ndoole Mukule, who fled Congo and now works for a dental instruments company in Houston. She had five sons singing in “The Refuge,” and a sixth, Ezechiel, 7, was eager to follow suit. “I want to be a singer,” he said. ... full article
David Witmer's (master's Student) orchestral work "Oscha" is featured on a new ERM Media release entitled "Masterworks of the New Era - Volume Ten " recorded by the Kiev Philharmonic with Robert Ian Winstin conducting.
David also received an honorable mention from 2007 CLEFWORKS Composition Competition for his composition titled "Miniatures for Piano Trio."
2007 Macht Competition winner : Cory Hibbs (doctoral candidate)
Cory Hibbs has just won the Macht Orchestra Composition Competition for his orchestral piece, "Last Year, In New England." The piece will be performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra during their fall season.
Angel Lam: Silk Road Project Composition Workshop/Carnegie Hall Composition Commission
Angel Lam (doctoral candidate), she recently won the Silk Road Project Composition Workshop/Carnegie Hall Composition Commission. She is one of two composers awarded the commission to work with the Silk Road Ensemble, which will culminate in a premiere performance at the Tanglewood Music Center and a New York premiere at the Carnegie Hall this September. She also won the NACUSA Young Composer Competition Award Second Prize this year; she was also a winner in the same competition last year.
Her work "Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain" is featured on a new Sony/BMG release entitled "New Impossibilities,"the latest CD of Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.
In May 2006 Angel Lam will be in Chicago for the US premiere of her work Symphonic Journal: Ambush from Ten Directions for orchestra with narration performed by the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest. She will be a featured composer on the concert titled "Women in Music", conducted by Kim Diehnelt, and will participate in "Pre-concert Conversations with the Composer" with the audience. Last year she was in her native Hong Kong for the world premiere of the same piece narrated in Cantonese and performed by the Hong Kong Sinfonietta (conducted by music director Yip Wing-Sie) It was seen a week later on the major Hong Kong English language television channel (TVB Pearl) and broadcast on Radio-Television Hong Kong.
Peabody Faculty Member Christopher Theofanidis nominated for classical composition GRAMMY award.
The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is pleased to announce that composition faculty member Christopher Theofanidis was nominated for a GRAMMY award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for his piece The Here and Now. The category is for a contemporary classical composition composed within the last 25 years, and released for the first time during the eligibility year. The nominations for the 49th Annual GRAMMY Awards were announced on Thursday, December 7 by The Recording Academy. The winners will be announced mid-February.
Theofanidis’ The Here and Now was written for the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus and recorded in October 2005 for TELARC. The piece, conducted by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Robert Spano, is based on works of 13th-century poet Rumi and is 35 minutes in length.
Editor's Choice from Gramophone Magazine (December 2005)
Telarc releases the world premiere recording of two of the most recent works commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: Paul Revere’s Ride by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici and The Here and Now by Masterprize winner Christopher Theofanidis. The recording concludes with the “Lamentation” from one of Leonard Bernstein’s earliest works, Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah). Listen to Samples
Department News
Congratulations to Computer Music and Composition faculty member Greg Boyle, who has received the Peabody Conservatory "Excellence in Teaching Award" for 2007-08.
Roger Zare (Master's student) received 2008 Underwood Commission from the American Composers Orchestra
Composer Roger Zare has been named the winner of American Composers Orchestra's 2008 Underwood Emerging Composers Commission, bringing him a $15,000 commission for a work to be premiered by American Composers Orchestra. Chosen from six finalists, in one of the most coveted opportunities for emerging composers in America, Mr. Zare won the top prize at ACO's annual Underwood New Music Readings with his work, Green Flash. In awarding Zare the Underwood Commission, ACO has singled him out as a composer whose "lapidary orchestrations, formal clarity, and alluringly mercurial surface give his music a strong and personal profile," says ACO Artistic Director Robert Beaser.
2008 Prix d' Ete XIII (with computer technology) Prize in Musical Composition.
First Prize:
Matt Diamond, "Piano-Shaped Object" for piano and tape
Second Prize:
Jenny Beck, "Meditation on Torment and Triumph" for
violin and electronics
Amy Beth Kirsten (DMA in progress, Faculty) was just selected as one of two alternates for the 2008-9 Rome Prize in Musical Composition.
Amy Beth Kirsten (Faculty, DMA in progress) was just selected as one of two alternates for the 2008-9 Rome Prize in Musical Composition. Rome Prize fellowships are designed for emerging artists and for scholars in the early or middle stages of their careers. Winners are awarded an 11-month fellowship at the American Academy in Rome where they pursue work on a proposed project.
Amy Beth Kirsten (DMA in progress, Faculty) was recently chosen as the only international participant in the National Arts Centre
Composers Programme in Ottawa, Ontario, in June 2008. The program, led by NAC Award Composer, Gary Kulesha,features five talented, emerging professional composers to participate in an intense program of study. Participants compose a new work for a professional ensemble of up to 12 parts. Each composition will be work-shopped in several sessions with a dedicated ensemble from l’Orchestre de la francophonie canadienne, led by its Music Director and Conductor Jean Philippe Tremblay. Works by Kulesha and the participating composers will be presented in a public concert as the culmination of the program.
Amy Beth Kirsten: American Composer's Orchestra 16th Annual Underwood New Music Readings and Commission.
Amy Kirsten is one of 9 finalists chosen to participate in the American Composer's Orchestra 16th Annual Underwood New Music Readings and Commission.
Strange Angel, completed in November 2006, will be read by the renowned orchestra on May 8-9, 2007 at Skirball Center for Performing Arts in New York City. One of the 9 finalists will be awarded a 15,000 commission to write a new work to be performed by the ACO.
Michael Hersch’s newest recording features his newest work, an epic piece for solo piano, performed by the composer himself. This two CD set, specially priced, follows 2005’s well received recording for Naxos of Hersch’s orchestral music.
This work premiered in Philadelphia in the autumn of 2006 to rapturous reviews.
"A natural musical genius who continues to surpass himself." -– Tim Page The Washington Post
"The evening felt downright historic. [Hersch] conjured volcanic gestures from the piano with astonishing virtuosity. Everything unfolds in open-ended, haiku-like eruptions, though built on ideas that recur throughout the 50 movements, from a lamenting, chantlike melody to passages of such speed and density you'd think the complete works of Franz Liszt were played simultaneously within three minutes. Overtly or covertly, The Vanishing Pavilions is about the destruction of shelter (both in fact and in concept) and life amid the absence of any certainty. And though the music is as deeply troubled as can be, its restless directness also commands listeners not to be paralyzed by existential futility."
-- The Philadelphia Inquirer
Elisenda Fábregas (doctoral student) will perform five of her song cycles with soprano Rachel Rosales at Bennington College (Carriage Barn), Vermont, on Monday, October 15 at 7:30. Song cycles include: Five songs (1986) (Spanish poetry by Federico Garcia Lorca); Five musings on the past (2002) (Spanish poetry by Fábregas); Moments of change (2004) (English poetry by Margaret Atwood); Village scenes (Catalan poetry by Fábregas); and the premiere of "Tu i els meus somnis" (Catalan poetry by Josep Janés).
The Flaming Rock (2007) for SATB chorus and string quartet, commissioned by Allegro Chorale and Orchestra Inc. of Midland/Odessa, will be premiered by the Cassatt String Quartet and the Allegro Chorale conducted by Nyela Basney on November 17 (Midland) and 18 (Odessa) in Texas.
Voces de mi tierra (2003) for flute, cello & piano will be performed by Seasons Chamber Players as part of a program titled "American connections" in seven concerts in 2007 and early 2008.- various locations in New Jersey and New York.
Homenaje a Mompou (2007) for solo piano, commissioned by Dutch pianist, Marcel Worms, will be premiered in an all-Mompou Festival at the Noorderkerk, and at the Bethaniënklooste, in Amsterdam. Marcel Worms will also perform this work at Hengelo - Waterstaatkerk, Holland (9/30/07); Hertogenbosch, de Toonzaal, Holland (11/29/07); Union College, Schuylerville, NY (1/21/08); University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD (1/23/08); and Montevallo University, Montevallo, AL 2007 marks the 25th anniversary of Mompou's death.
Voices of the rainforest (2008) for flute, cello and piano will be premiered by the Meininger-Trio at the Night Music program - WDR Broadcasting Station in Cologne (Germany) and additional performances in Cologne, Hanover, Frankfurt, and at the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin in collaboration with the Spanish Embassy.
Kevin Clark received an honorable mention on USA Today's 18th annual All-USA College Academic Team
Kevin Clark (master's Student), a composition major at Peabody and a philosophy major in the Krieger School of Arts Sciences at Johns Hopkins, received an honorable mention on USA Today's 18th annual All-USA College Academic Team, a recognition program for outstanding undergraduate students.
Chris Whittaker (undergraduate student) will receive his first orchestra commission to write a piece for a professional orchestra from his hometown, the York Symphony Orchestra. The commission work is 8-10 minutes in duration and to be premiered on the April 21, 2007 concert season.
Professor Michael Hersch's work "Ashes of Memory" is featured on a new Cedille Records release entitled "American Orchestral Works" recorded by the Grant Park Festival Orchestra with Carlos Kalmar conducting. The recording features world premiere recordings of John Corigiano, John Harbison, Aaron Jay Kernis and Michael Hersch. Listen to Samples
Championed by distinguished conductors such as Marin Alsop and Mariss Jansons, since his mid-20s, Michael Hersch’s music has been performed by leading orchestras and concert artists. Winner of the prestigious Berlin Prize and the Rome Prize for composition, he has been described as a “new hope of American musical culture” by the Berliner Morgenpost, and a composer of “phenomenal musical ability” by the Financial Times. Hersch’s music, which ranges across vast and often anguished soundscapes, has a searing yet breath-taking effect. If Symphony No. 1 shows a young composer influenced by Mahler and Berg, Symphony No. 2 represents a more innovative and complex style. Fracta and Arraché are two harrowing and intense shorter pieces illustrative of Hersch’s most recent work. All works here receive their world première recording. Listen to Samples
Baris Perker, a doctoral degree student, had recent performances in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. The Presidential Symphony Orchestra performed his Symphony Concertante for Piano and Orchestra on April 27 and 28, 2006, with pianist Metin Ulku as soloist, and conductor Naci Ozguc on the podium. Just before Christmas last year, on December 23 and 24, 2005, his orchestra piece The Dreamy Dance was performed by Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra in Istanbul. This piece won Peabody's Macht Competition and will be performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra next fall in a public concert.
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The Peabody Institute Composition Department
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