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Music Alive Round V Recipients:


Robert Livingston Aldridge/Westfield Symphony Orchestra, NJ (2 Weeks)

aldridge
Robert Livingston Aldridge
Robert Livingston Aldridge (b. 1954) has written over sixty works for orchestra, opera, music-theater, dance, string quartet, solo and chamber ensembles. His music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. His new musical, The Third Person, based on a short story by Henry James, with book and lyrics by Herschel Garfein, will be premiered in London during the 2003-2004 season.

sound Listen (excerpt):
Robert Livingston
Aldridge's
Leda and
the Swan

(MP3)
Mr. Aldridge received a Doctorate in Composition from the Yale School of Music, a Master's degree in Composition from the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is Assistant Professor of Music at Montclair State University, where he teaches music composition and theory. Recordings of his music are available on BMG, GM, Foghorn, SoundVision, Open Loop and Northeastern labels.

Christopher Brubeck/Stockton Symphony, CA (3 Weeks)

brubeck
Christopher Brubeck
Christopher Brubeck first distinguished himself as a jazz musician, performing and recording with his father, the legendary Dave Brubeck. He plays bass, trombone, piano, guitar and sings and, in the past few decades, has earned international acclaim as composer, performer and leader of his own groups. On stage, Mr. Brubeck's irrepressible enthusiasm is matched by his fluid command of jazz, blues, folk, funk, pop and classical musical styles.

sound Listen (excerpt):
Christopher
Brubeck's
Convergence
(MP3)

An award winning composer, he has composed and arranged for The Boston Pops, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the Aspen Wind Quintette and The Manhattan Choral Festival. Mr. Brubeck is currently composing new works commissioned by The U.S. Army Field Band, and by a consortium of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Bay Chamber Concerts of Rockport, Maine.

Vivian Fung/San Jose Chamber Orchestra, CA (2 Weeks)

fung
Vivian Fung
Vivian Fung (b. 1975) has been described by The New York Times as "prodigiously gifted," and by The Seattle Times as "a composer of considerable skill." She has had an impressive string of commissions and performances by such ensembles as the Seattle Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, New England Philharmonic, American String Quartet, Avalon String Quartet, Music Teachers' Association of California, and the Millennium Chamber Music Society.

sound Listen (excerpt):
Vivian Fung's
Pizzicato (MP3),
performed by
The San
Jose Chamber
Orchestra


Her works have been broadcast nationally in Canada on CBC radio as well as in the United States. Ms. Fung studied composition at The Juilliard School with David Diamond and Robert Beaser, and studied piano with Gyorgy Sandor. She received a Doctor of Musical Arts from Juilliard in May 2002.

Edward Green/InterSchool Orchestras of New York, NY (2 Weeks)

green
Edward Green
Edward Green has been a professor at Manhattan School of Music since 1984, teaching composition, jazz history, world music and courses in the humanities. His academic training was at Oberlin and New York University, and he continued his artistic education in Aesthetic Realism classes taught by the great poet and philosopher Eli Siegel.

sound Listen (excerpt):
Edward Green's
Concertino
for Piano and
Orchestra
(MP3)
(2001)
Mr. Green is a diverse composer who has worked in many media, including film. Among Green's most recent orchestral compositions are his Trumpet Concerto, Overture (in G), and his Concerto for Alto Sax and Strings. Recent chamber works include a piano quintet and a sextet, based on Arabic rhythms, which was premiered last September at the Kennedy Center.

William Kraft/San Diego Youth Symphony, CA (2 Weeks)

kraft
William Kraft
William Kraft (b. 1923) has had a long and active career as composer, conductor, percussionist, and teacher. From 1981-1985, Mr. Kraft was the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Composer-in-Residence; for the first year under Philharmonic auspices, and the subsequent three years through the Meet The Composer Orchestra Residencies program. During his residency, he was founder and director of the orchestra's performing arm for contemporary music, the Philharmonic New Music Group. Mr. Kraft had previously been a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 26 years; eight years as percussionist, and the last 18 as Principal Timpanist. For three seasons, he was also assistant conductor of the orchestra, and, thereafter, a frequent guest conductor.

sound Listen (excerpt):
William Kraft's
Veils and Variations
for Horn and
Orchestra
(MP3),
performed by
The Berkeley
Symphony
Orchestra (1999)


Recent activities include: Performances of Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra by the Dresden (Germany) Philharmonic Orchestra in Tokyo, Japan, and also by the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony; Red Azalea, an opera commissioned by the Modern Music Theater Troupe (London) premiered in 2002 at the University of California at Santa Barbara's New Music Festival followed by a European premiere in London; and residencies at the Chopin Conservatory in Warsaw, Poland and the University of Indiana, Bloomington. Current recording projects are with Prague Philharmonic, New England Conservatory and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

John Mackey/Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, WA (4 Weeks)

mackey
John Mackey
John Mackey (b. 1973) holds a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with John Corigliano and Donald Erb. Mr. Mackey particularly enjoys writing music for dance, and he has focused on that medium for the past few years.

sound Listen (excerpt):
John Mackey's
Redline Tango (MP3),
performed by
The Brooklyn
Philharmonic

His orchestral music has received performances by over a dozen American youth orchestras, including those in New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Portland. Mr. Mackey's first orchestral work, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, has been commercially recorded by both the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony and the Portland Youth Philharmonic.

Philip Rothman/Eugene Symphony Orchestra Association, OR (2 Weeks)

rothman
Philip Rothman
Philip Rothman (b. 1976) is an award-winning composer whose works have been performed by the Utah Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Eugene Symphony, National Philharmonic of Lithuania, Juilliard Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony, United States Military Academy Band, and numerous other ensembles. Mr. Rothman's music has been heard at major venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and it has been broadcast on over 200 American radio stations, including NPR's Performance Today, the syndicated radio program Indianapolis on-the-Air, and the McGraw-Hill Companies' Young Artists Showcase.

sound Listen (excerpt):
Philip Rothman's
The Manhattan
Chase
(MP3),
performed by
The Colorado
Music Festival
Orchestra (1999)


Mr. Rothman holds a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude from Rice University and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where he was awarded a full scholarship. His teachers in composition have included Samuel Adler, Edward Applebaum, Samuel Jones, and Richard Lavenda.

Roberto Sierra/New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, NM (2 Weeks)

sierra
Roberto Sierra
Roberto Sierra (b. 1953) is considered to be one of the leading American composers of his generation. In 1987 Mr. Sierra came to prominence when his first major orchestral composition, Júbilo, was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. His works have been performed by the orchestras of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Dallas, Detroit, San Antonio and Phoenix, as well as by the American Composers Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Continuum, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, Voices of Change, England's BBC Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and at Wolf Trap, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Festival Casals, Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, France's Festival de Lille, and others.

sound Listen (excerpt):
Roberto Sierra's
Con Madura, Metal
y Cuero
(MP3)
(1999)


His Salsa para vientos was a prize-winning work at the 1983 Budapest Spring Festival, and his Suite won first prize at the Alienor Harpsichord Competition. In 1987 the Almeida Festival in London devoted an entire concert to his chamber works, and the event was recorded and broadcast by the BBC. In April 2000, Continuum ensemble presented a retrospective of Mr. Sierra's chamber works at Merkin Concert Hall in New York. In 2003, Mr. Sierra was awarded the prestigious Award in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music may be heard on releases by New World Records, Newport Classic, New Albion, ADDA, Musical Heritage Society, Koss Classics, CRI, BMG, Fleur de Son, Albany, Ondine, Urtext and Dorian Records.

Peter Schickele/Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, IA (2 Weeks)

schickele
Peter Schickele
Peter Schickele (b. 1935) is internationally recognized as one of the most versatile artists in the field of new music. His works, now well in excess of 100 for symphony orchestras, choral groups, chamber ensembles, voice, movies, and television have given him "a leading role in the ever-more-prominent school of American composers who unselfconsciously blend all levels of American music." (John Rockwell, The New York Times). He studied composition with Roy Harris and Darius Milhaud, and at The Juilliard School of Music with Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma. Then, under a Ford Foundation grant, he composed music for high schools in Los Angeles before returning to teach at Juilliard in 1961.

sound Listen (excerpt):
Peter Schickele's
Concerto for Chamber
Orchestra
(MP3)
In 1965 he gave up teaching to become the freelance composer/performer he has been ever since. In the course of his career, Mr. Schickele has also created music for four feature films, among them the prize-winning Silent Running, and for documentaries, television commercials, several Sesame Street segments and an underground movie that he has never seen in its finished state. He was also one of the composer/lyricists for Oh! Calcutta!, and has arranged for Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie and other folk singers.