Season 34 Concert 8

Sunday, December 5, 1999, 8:00 pm at Clapp Recital Hall

Program

* SOM faculty

Notes & Bios

MICHAEL ECKERT

Michael Eckert has taught music theory and composition at the University of Iowa School of Music in since 1985, and is currently Head of the Composition/Theory Area. He studied composition with John Richard Ronsheim at Antioch College, and with Ralph Shapey at the University of Chicago, receiving an M.A. in music history & theory in 1975 and the Ph.D. in composition in 1977. Before coming to Iowa he taught at Colorado State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tulane University, and Antioch College. His awards for composition include the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, a Charles E. Ives Scholarship from the National Institute of Arts and Letters , an NEA fellowship, and the Music Teachers National Association Distinguished Composer of the Year Award. In 1986 he received a Fulbright Junior Fellowship to Italy and an NEH Travel to Collections grant for research on the music of Luigi Dallapiccola. Eckert has also done research on fifteenth century music, and from 1993 to 1995 directed the UI Collegium Musicum, the School's early music ensemble
Link to Michael Eckert

LAWRENCE FRITTS

Lawrence Fritts received his PhD in Composition from the University of Chicago, where he studied with Shulamit Ran, John Eaton, and Ralph Shapey. He is Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Iowa, where he directs the Electronic Music Studios. Recent compositions have been presented at festivals, conferences, and concert series in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, Bowling Green, San Jose, Thessaloniki, Gorizia, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Lyons. His music is recorded on the Frog Peak and Innova labels. His work on mathematics and music has been published in Music Theory Spectrum and by the American Mathematical Society and the Institute for Advanced Study in Informatics and Systems Research.
Link to Lawrence Fritts

JEREMY DALE ROBERTS

Jeremy Dale Roberts (b. 1934, Gloucestershire, England), who recently retired as the distinguished Head of Composition at the Royal College of Music, London, is a Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of Iowa. He studied with William Alwyn and Priaulx Rainier at Marlborough College and the Royal Academy of Music, and his compositions have been performed at the Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals, the Venice Biennale, the Diorama de Geneve, and the festivals of Avignon and Paris. They include the Cello Concerto - 'Deathwatch' written for Rohan de Saram; Tombeau for piano, written for Stephen Bishop Kovacevich; Croquis for string trio, written for members of the Arditti Quartet (BBC commission); In the Same Space, nine poems of Constantin Cavafy, written for Stephen Varcoe; and Lines of Life, lyric episodes for ensemble, written for Lontano (BBC commission); 'Casidas y Sonetos - del amor oscuro', for solo guitar (Arts Council commission) for Charles Ramirez. He was the subject of a BBC "Composer's Portrait" in April, 1981.

GEORGE CRUMB

George Crumb was born 24 October 1929 in Charleston, West Virginia. He received his D.M.A. at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he studied composition with Ross Lee Finney. Crumb has received numerous awards, honors and commissions (Pulitzer Prize 1968; International Rostrum of Composers (UNESCO) Award 1971; Fromm, Guggenheim, Koussevitzky and Rockefeller Foundations) and is a member of the National Institute of Arts & Letters. Presently he is composer in residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Audience enthusiasm, critical acclaim and colleagues' praise have been extensive for Crumb's mature works (dating from approximately 1962). Among those qualities that are most frequently cited are the following: an extraordinarily sensitive ear resulting in highly refined timbral nuances; a very powerful evocative sense and a sureness and concision in realizing his musical intentions. All of these interact structurally to form a body of music which is moving and convincing.

RICHARD HERVIG

Richard Hervig was born in Iowa, grew up in South Dakota, and studied composition under the later Philip Greeley Clapp at the University of Iowa starting in 1940. One wife, one child and one war later, he received the PhD from Iowa. From 1955 until 1988 he taught composition and theory at Iowa. He was the co-founder of the Center for New Music, which received its initial support from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1966. In 1988 he retired from the University of Iowa and began teaching in the Literature and Materials of Music program at The Juilliard School in New York, where he still lives.

RICHARD DANIELPOUR

Richard Danielpour has established himself as one of the most gifted and sought-after composers of his generation. His is music of large and romantic gestures, brilliantly orchestrated and rhythmically vibrant.
    Richard Danielpour's music has been heard throughout the United States and abroad. In 1996, Sony Classical recognized his special talent in signing the composer to an exclusive recording contract. Recent premieres include: Vox Populi (1998), a concert-opener for the Evansville Philharmonic; Celestial Night, a symphony celebrating the October 1997 opening of the new home of the New Jersey Symphony; the January 1998 performance (along with the 22 January Carnegie Halldebut) of Elegies (1997), an orchestral work for Roger Nierenberg and the Jacksonville Symphony, featuring soloists Frederica von Stade and Thomas Hampson; the May 1998 premiere at Lincoln Center of Spirits in the Well, a song cycle for Jessye Norman, with texts by Toni Morrison, and the August 1998 premiere of Feast of Fools, a bassoon quintet for Stephen Walt and the Muir String Quartet. Danielpour's schedule includes numerous commissions extending well into the millennium. His works for premiere in 2000 include: Voices of Remembrance, a concerto for the Guarneri String Quartet with the National Symphony, in Washington in January and then later in Carnegie Hall; The Night Rainbow, also in January, a concert opener for the Pacific Symphony; a work entitled A Child's Reliquary for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio (April 2000); and a violin concerto in August for the Philadelphia Orchestra with soloist Chantal Juillet and conductor Charles Dutoit.
    Among the more than 30 other organizations that have commissioned Danielpour's music are the New York Philharmonic (Toward the Splendid City); the San Francisco Symphony (Symphony No. 2, Song of Remembrance, and the Cello Concerto); the Pittsburgh Symphony (Concerto for Orchestra, celebrating the orchestra's 100th anniversary); the Baltimore Symphony (The Awakened Heart); the New York Chamber Symphony (Metamorphosis); the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (Piano Quintet and Sonnets to Orpheus Book I, for Dawn Upshaw); Absolut Vodka (Piano Concerto No. 2); and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (Sonnets to Orpheus Book 2). His music has also been performed by the symphony orchestras of Dallas, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Seattle, and Utah, the American Composers Orchestra, and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome. He has written for John Aler, Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Kurt Ollman, Christopher O'Riley, William Sharp, Dawn Upshaw, the Emerson and Muir quartets, and the Saturday Brass Quintet. Danielpour has also composed two major scores for ballet, Anima Mundi (1996) for the Pacific Northwest Ballet and Urban Dances for Orchestra (1997) for the New York City Ballet.
    Among Danielpour's awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, the Bearns Prize (from Columbia University), The Charles Ives Fellowship and a Lifetime Achievement Award (both from the American Academy of Arts and Letters), two Barlow Foundation grants, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the American Academy in Rome. Danielpour is currently serving a three-year composer residency with the Pacific Symphony.
    Born in New York City on 28 January 1956, Danielpour studied at the New England Conservatory and the Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti and Peter Mennin. Danielpour was also trained as a pianist with Lorin Hollander, Veronica Jochum, and Gabriel Chodos. He is a member of the composition faculty at the Curtis Institute and the Manhattan School of Music.