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BIO: Stefan Weisman is a composer born and raised in the great state of New Jersey (Exit 9), and now living in Hell's Kitchen, New York City. His works include chamber, orchestral and choral pieces, as well as opera, and music for theater, video and dance. He was recently commissioned by Second Movement for a one act opera to be premiered in London in Summer 2008. Among his other commissions are works for Bang on a Can's People’s Commissioning Program, Sequitur, the Minimum Security Composers Collective, the Empire City Men's Choir with the Cosmopolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Battell Chapel Choir, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers’ Symposium, which commissioned a piece in honor of George Crumb on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Other groups who have performed his work include the Miró String Quartet, So Percussion, the Locrian Chamber Players, the New Millennium Ensemble, the Third Angle Ensemble, the Yesaroun' Duo, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Luna Nova, pianist Lisa Moore, flautist Patti Monson, mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn, male soprano Anthony Roth Costanzo, Newspeak, the NOW Ensemble, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra conducted by Luis Garcia-Renart, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic conducted by Leon Botstein, and a reading by the New Jersey Symphony with conductor Paul Lustig Dunkel. His orchestral work "The Bird Happens" was selected to be included in the American Composers Orchestra's 2005 Underwood New Music Readings, and was conducted by Steven Sloane. In March 2006 he participated in "Ear Department" a program at Merkin Hall hosted by composer Michael Gordon. He has specialized in vocal pieces which explore edgy and compelling topics. Anthony Tommasini (New York Times) called his music in the chamber opera DARKLING "personal, moody and skillfully wrought." DARKLING, commissioned by the American Opera Projects, was included in the Guggenheim Museum's "Works & Process" series, and premiered to great acclaim at the Classic Stage Company Theater. The piece was presented in the Lower East Side Performing Arts' Op on Screen Festival, and at the German Consulate as part of the Friends of Freie Universität's Jewish Documentary Film, Theater and Speaker Series. A touring version of DARKLING previewed at New York City Opera's VOX "On the Edge" Showcase and was then presented in Germany and Poland in 2007. His music has also been heard at places such as Symphony Space, Merkin Concert Hall, the June in Buffalo festival, the Flea Theater, and a Bang on a Can Marathon Concert. He has participated in theater, dance and video collaborations at venues including the Knitting Factory, Collective Unconscious, WAX, the HERE Theater, the Most Significant Bytes Multimedia Festival, and Barbès. His fellowships and residencies include the MacDowell Colony, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. He is a recipient of awards from Meet the Composer, SCI, ASCAP, and the American Music Center. His choral work “Light, light, light, light, light” was the first-prize winner in the Roger Wagner Center’s Choral Composition Competition. His piece “From Frankenstein” won the Chicago Ensemble’s 2005 Discover America Competition. A graduate of Bard College (Clair Leonard Scholar, Betsy Richards Memorial Scholar, BA `92) and Yale University (Bradley-Keeler Memorial Scholar, MM `97), he is currently a PhD candidate at Princeton University (Naumberg Fellowship, MFA `03). His composition instructors have included David Lang, Joan Tower, Daron Hagen, Martin Bresnick, Jacob Druckman, Steven Mackey, Barbara White and Paul Lansky. Presently, he teaches in the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, and the Music Department of the City College, CCNY. He has been a Lecturer in Music at Princeton University, and has also been the coordinator of both the Princeton University Composers’ Ensemble, and the Princeton University Composers’ Colloquia. Additionally, he produced the compact discs included in the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor award-winning book "Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington" (Yale University Press) by Vivian Perlis and Libby Van Cleve. |
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