Alexander Liebermann (born 1989) is a German-French composer of classical music based in New York City. [1] [2] He is best known for transcribing birdsongs into musical notation and sharing them on social media. [2] He incorporates bird calls into his classical music compositions, which have been performed around the world.
Liebermann was educated at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin before earning a master's degree at the Juilliard School in New York City. [3] While a student at Julliard, Liebermann wrote Rondeaux, a two-part composition inspired by French medieval poets Alain Chartier and Charles d'Orléans. [3] He remained in New York after graduating Julliard to obtain a doctorate in music theory and composition from the Manhattan School of Music, where his thesis on Czech pianist and composer Erwin Schulhoff was awarded the Saul Braverman Award in Music Theory. [4]
While quarantining in Berlin during the COVID-19 pandemic, Liebermann began listening attentively to recordings of birdsongs online, transcribing them onto sheet music, and composing music that incorporates the bird calls. [2] He describes birdsongs as "unpredictable, haunting... spine-tingling calls" that are themselves a form of music. [2] His interest in integrating birdsongs into classical compositions began during a visit to Costa Rica in February 2020. [2] Since beginning his musical study of birds, Lieberman has translated calls from many bird species into modern staff notation for sheet music, including the uirapuru, the common loon, the thrush nightingale, the white bellbird, the Chinese hwamei, the uguisu, the common peafowl, the oropendola, the cuckoo, and the Javan pied starling, among others. [2]
In 2018, Liebermann was commissioned to compose a climate-themed melodrama for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. [5] The work, titled Erwachen, turns on the experience of a young girl in the future as she reflects on her ancestors' failure to confront the threat of climate change. In 2022, he published his debut book, Birdsong: A Musical Field Guide. [5]
When not composing his own music, Liebermann teaches at the Julliard School. [5]
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Definitions of music vary depending on culture, though it is an aspect of all human societies and a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, psychology, and therapeutic contexts. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice.
Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist, best known for comedy albums featuring his music, but which he presents as being composed by the fictional P. D. Q. Bach. He also hosted a long-running weekly radio program called Schickele Mix.
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score", which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, but in musical theatre and in pop music, songwriters may hire an arranger to do the orchestration. In some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all and instead compose the song in their mind and then play, sing or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable sound recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music.
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, Arabic, or other languages – the medium of sheet music typically is paper. However, access to musical notation since the 1980s has included the presentation of musical notation on computer screens and the development of scorewriter computer programs that can notate a song or piece electronically, and, in some cases, "play back" the notated music using a synthesizer or virtual instruments.
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex. Harmonically and melodically he employs a system he called modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from the systems of material his early compositions and improvisations generated. He wrote music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, voice, solo organ, and piano, and experimented with the use of novel electronic instruments developed in Europe during his lifetime.
Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor, and classical guitarist. He is a Member of Honour of the International Music Council.
The Juilliard School, often abbreviated simply as Juilliard, is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named after its principal benefactor Augustus D. Juilliard. Juilliard is one of the most prestigious performing arts schools in the world.
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
John Paul Corigliano Jr. is an American composer of contemporary classical music. His scores, now numbering over one hundred, have won him the Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Oscar.
Ludwig van Beethoven's late string quartets are:
Lowell Liebermann is an American composer, pianist and conductor.
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Hall Franklin Overton was an American composer, jazz pianist and music teacher.
Biomusic is a form of experimental music which deals with sounds created or performed by non-humans. The definition is also sometimes extended to include sounds made by humans in a directly biological way. For instance, music that is created by the brain waves of the composer can also be called biomusic as can music created by the human body without the use of tools or instruments that are not part of the body.
Paul Kim is an American classical pianist.
Mark Bucci was an American composer, lyricist, and dramatist. Influenced by Giacomo Puccini, his work is composed in a contemporary yet lyrical style, which frequently employs marked rhythms and memorable harmonies and melodies.
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Andrew Norman is an American composer of contemporary classical music whose texturally complex music is influenced by architecture and the visual arts. His string trio The Companion Guide to Rome (2010), was a runner-up for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music. While composer-in-residence for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, he first gained international attention for the orchestral work Play (2013), which was nominated for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and won the 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. He received another Grammy nomination for the orchestral work Sustain (2018), a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Other noted works include the fantasy for piano and orchestra Split (2015) and the opera A Trip to the Moon (2017). Since 2020, Norman has been on the composition faculty of the Juilliard School.
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