Meet the Composer

Gordon Beeferman New York, New York

Morbidity and Mortality Report (2002)

11 minutes
3(III=picc).3.3(III=bcl).3(III=cbn)—4.3.3.1—timp.perc(2)—harp—strings
World premiere: March 15, 2003, Albany Symphony, David Allan Miller

• Listen to an excerpt of movement III:
  
  Listen to an excerpt of movement IV:
  
  Performed by the Albany Symphony
• Score excerpt (pdf, 266kb) »
• Program notes (pdf, 57kb) »
• Residency proposal (pdf, 82kb) »

Gordon Beeferman is a composer, pianist and improviser based in New York City. His works—orchestral, solo, chamber, and opera—have been been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, Albany Symphony, California EAR Unit, Quartet New Generation recorder collective, American Brass Quintet, eighth blackbird, pianist Winston Choi, soprano Lisa Bielawa, and others. His chamber opera "The Rat Land," performed by the New York City Opera on its VOX: Showcasing American Composers series, was praised by the New York Times as "complex and daringly modern...Mr. Beeferman’s music, with its skittish melodic lines and pungent atonal harmony, is gritty, fidgety and intriguing." The Albany Times-Union described his orchestral work as "Chilling…unpredictable… brutal."

Beeferman has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, the BMI Foundation, and Concert Artists Guild, among others, and prizes including three BMI Student Composer Awards, an ASCAP Young Composer Award, and the BMG/Williams College National Awards to Young Composers Grand Prize. He has been a fellow at Tanglewood and a resident composer at the Copland House.

A "fully liberated pianist" (Cadence Magazine), Beeferman has performed in a wide range of settings, from concerto soloist to free-improviser. In New York he has performed at Roulette, the Vision Festival, the Knitting Factory, MATA, Columbia University's Italian Academy and the Improvised and Otherwise Festival, as well as at other venues across the US and Canada. He has collaborated extensively with dancers, writers, and visual artists, in particular, with choreographer Anita Cheng; his work has been performed locally at spaces including the Joyce SoHo, Danspace, and the Merce Cunningham Studio.

A native of Cambridge, Mass., Beeferman was born in 1976. He played piano from an early age; he studied jazz and Third Stream privately with Ran Blake. He received his B.M. in composition from the University of Michigan and was awarded the Stanley Medal, the School’s highest undergraduate honor. His teachers have included William Albright, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng and Leslie Bassett for composition, and Steven Drury and Anton Nel for piano.

Beeferman’s recordings of improvised music are available on Generate Records. Scheduled for release in 2009 are chamber works on the Genuin and Summit labels.

Coming up in 2009 are the world premiere of Scene Two from "The Rat Land" in concert at New York City Opera’s VOX showcase; and the debut of Beeferman’s "Music for an Imaginary Band," a 7-piece ensemble featuring some of New York’s finest improvisers, combining new-music, jazz and free-improv in a unique, idiosyncratic way.

Composer’s website »