Allen Shawn

Last updated

Allen Shawn
Born
Allen Evan Shawn

(1948-08-27) August 27, 1948 (age 75)
New York City, U.S. [1]
Education Harvard University (BA)
Columbia University (MA)
Occupation(s)Composer, pianist, educator, author
Spouses
  • (m. 1979;div. 2002)
  • Yoshiko Sato
    (m. 2007)
Children3
Parents
Relatives Wallace Shawn (brother)

Allen Evan Shawn (born August 27, 1948) [2] is an American composer, pianist, educator, and author based in Vermont.

Contents

His music

Shawn began composing at the age of ten, but dates his mature work from 1977. He has written a dozen orchestral works, including a symphony, two piano concertos, a cello concerto, and a violin concerto; three chamber operas; five piano sonatas and many additional works for piano; and a large catalogue of chamber music, songs and choral music. Among Shawn's available recordings are several of chamber music, four CDs of piano music, including a CD devoted to his piano work by German pianist Julia Bartha, a piano concerto performed by Ursula Oppens with the Albany Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Alan Miller, and the chamber opera The Music Teacher, with a libretto by his brother, Wallace Shawn.

As author

Shawn is the author of a book about Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, Arnold Schoenberg's Journey, and a book about Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein: An American Musician.

He is also the author of Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life, which examines his experiences with anxiety and panic disorder, as well as his relationship with his autistic twin sister Mary, [3] and Twin: A Memoir, also about Mary and his relationship with her. [4] He discussed Twin with Terry Gross on WHYY's Fresh Air on January 3, 2011. [5]

Personal life

Shawn is a son of The New Yorker editor William Shawn, and the brother of the actor and playwright Wallace Shawn. His family is of Jewish background. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, a master's degree from Columbia University, and studied in France with Nadia Boulanger. [6]

He teaches composition and music history at Bennington College and was formerly married to novelist Jamaica Kincaid, with whom he has a son, Harold, and a daughter, Annie.

He is married to pianist Yoshiko Sato, with whom he has a son, Noa. [2]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard Bernstein</span> American conductor and composer (1918–1990)

Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Schoenberg</span> Austrian-American composer (1874–1951)

Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-century classical music, and a central element of his music was its use of motives as a means of coherence. He propounded concepts like developing variation, the emancipation of the dissonance, and the "unity of musical space".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Blitzstein</span> American composer

Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. He is known for The Cradle Will Rock and for his off-Broadway translation/adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. His works also include the opera Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes; the Broadway musical Juno, based on Seán O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock; and No for an Answer. He completed translation/adaptations of Brecht's and Weill's musical play Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children with music by Paul Dessau. Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as Surf and Seaweed (1931) and The Spanish Earth (1937), and he contributed two songs to the original 1960 production of Hellman's play Toys in the Attic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Wuorinen</span> American composer (1938–2020)

Charles Peter Wuorinen was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He also performed as a pianist and conductor. Wuorinen composed more than 270 works: orchestral music, chamber music, solo instrumental and vocal works, and operas, such as Brokeback Mountain. His work was termed serialist but he came to disparage that idea as meaningless. Time's Encomium, his only purely electronic piece, received the Pulitzer Prize. Wuorinen taught at several institutions, including Columbia University, Rutgers University and the Manhattan School of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Tower</span> American composer, concert pianist and conductor

Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberto Gerhard</span> Spanish and British composer (1896–1970)

Robert Gerhard i Ottenwaelder was a Spanish and British composer, musical scholar, and writer, generally known outside his native region of Catalonia as Roberto Gerhard.

Peter Racine Fricker was an English composer, among the first to establish his career entirely after the Second World War. He lived in the US for the last thirty years of his life. Fricker wrote over 160 works in all the main genres excepting opera. He was a descendant of the French playwright Racine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Serkin</span> Bohemian-born American pianist (1903–1991)

Rudolf Serkin was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century.

Arnold Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942) is one of his later works, written during his exile in the United States. It consists of four interconnected movements: Andante, Molto allegro, Adagio, and Giocoso. Around 20 minutes long, its first performance was given on February 6, 1944, at NBC Orchestra's Radio City Habitat in New York City by Leopold Stokowski and the NBC Symphony Orchestra with Eduard Steuermann at the piano. The first UK performance was on 7 September 1945 at the BBC Proms with Kyla Greenbaum (piano) conducted by Basil Cameron. The first German performance took place at the Darmstadt Summer School on 17 July 1948 with Peter Stadlen as the soloist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wallingford Riegger</span> American music composer

Wallingford Constantine Riegger was an American modernist composer and pianist, best known for his orchestral and modern dance music. He was born in Albany, Georgia, but spent most of his career in New York City, helping elevate the status of other American composers such as Charles Ives and Henry Cowell. Riegger is noted for being one of the first American composers to use a form of serialism and the twelve-tone technique.

Misha Dichter is an American pianist.

James Tocco is an American concert pianist. He is the youngest of thirteen children born to Vincenzo and Rose Tocco, both Sicilian immigrants.

Jacob Lateiner was a Cuban-American pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell Sherman</span> American classical pianist (1930–2023)

Russell Sherman was an American classical pianist, educator and author. He performed internationally, known especially for playing the music of Beethoven and Liszt. Driven by a "lifelong battle to reconstitute Liszt as a serious composer", he wrote for a recording of his Transcendental Études: "The poetic idea is central, and the virtuoso elements become so many layers to orchestrate the poetic content".

Martin Yates is a British conductor. After attending Kimbolton School, he studied at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music, London, where his teachers included Bernard Keeffe (conducting), Richard Arnell (composition), Ian Lake, Jakob Kaletsky and Alan Rowlands (piano), and Douglas Moore and John Burden.

Joseph Kalichstein was an American classical pianist who performed in the concerto, solo recital and chamber music repertoire, the latter mainly with Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson in the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He was also a professor at the Juilliard School in New York.

The following is a list of musical works which received their premieres at Carnegie Hall:

Sage City Symphony is a community orchestra based in Bennington, Vermont, United States, that tackles ambitious works from the traditional repertoire as well as commissioning new works. It was formed in 1972 by its first musical director, noted composer Louis Calabro, who was on the faculty of Bennington College. Sage City Symphony maintains its relationship with the college, relying on the campus for rehearsal and performance space.

David Schiff is an American composer, writer and conductor whose music draws on elements of jazz, rock, and klezmer styles, showing the influence of composers as diverse as Stravinsky, Mahler, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Terry Riley. His music has been performed by major orchestras and festivals around the United States and by soloists David Shifrin, Regina Carter, David Taylor, Marty Ehrlich, David Krakauer, Nadine Asin and Peter Kogan. He is the author of books on the music of Elliott Carter, George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. His work has been honored by the League-ISCM National Composers Competition award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor award for his book on Elliott Carter.

References

  1. New York, New York, Birth Index, 1910-1965
  2. 1 2 Vermont, Marriage Records, 1909-2008
  3. Shawn, Allen. Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life (New York: Viking, 2007)
  4. Shawn, Allen. Twin: A Memoir (New York: Viking, 2011)
  5. "Parallel Lives: Having A Twin With Mental Illness". NPR.org. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  6. "Allen Shawn, Nonpop New Music Composer". kalvos.org. Retrieved March 21, 2018.