Nils Vigeland (born 1950 in Buffalo, New York) is an American composer and pianist. [1] [2]
Vigeland made his professional debut as a pianist in 1969 with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He later studied composition with Lukas Foss at Harvard College, graduating with a B.A. in 1972. He earned his Ph.D at The University at Buffalo where he studied composition with Morton Feldman and piano with Yvar Mikhashoff. [3] After graduation, Vigeland toured for eight years with percussionist Jan Williams and flautist Eberhard Blum, performing extended length works for flute, percussion and piano that Feldman composed for them.
From 1980 to 1989, Vigeland directed The Bowery Ensemble, which gave an annual series of concerts in Cooper Union, NYC. The ensemble was strongly associated with the music of the New York School and gave the first performance of over thirty works by composers including Pauline Oliveros, Christian Wolff, Leo Smit, Chris Newman and John Thow.
Recordings of Vigeland's music are available from Mode, EMF, Focus, Lovely Music, and Naxos. [4] His choral music is published by Boosey and Hawkes. [5] He taught at Manhattan School of Music for thirty years, retiring as Chair of the Composition Department in 2013. [3]
Morton Feldman was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown. Feldman's works are characterized by notational innovations that he developed to create his characteristic sound: rhythms that seem to be free and floating, pitch shadings that seem softly unfocused, a generally quiet and slowly evolving music, and recurring asymmetric patterns. His later works, after 1977, also explore extremes of duration.
Michael Kevin Daugherty is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. He is influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism. Daugherty's notable works include his Superman comic book-inspired Metropolis Symphony for Orchestra (1988–93), Dead Elvis for Solo Bassoon and Chamber Ensemble (1993), Jackie O (1997), Niagara Falls for Symphonic Band (1997), UFO for Solo Percussion and Orchestra (1999) and for Symphonic Band (2000), Bells for Stokowski from Philadelphia Stories for Orchestra (2001) and for Symphonic Band (2002), Fire and Blood for Solo Violin and Orchestra (2003) inspired by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Time Machine for Three Conductors and Orchestra (2003), Ghost Ranch for Orchestra (2005), Deus ex Machina for Piano and Orchestra (2007), Labyrinth of Love for Soprano and Chamber Winds (2012), American Gothic for Orchestra (2013), and Tales of Hemingway for Cello and Orchestra (2015). Daugherty has been described by The Times (London) as "a master icon maker" with a "maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear."
Benjamin Lees was an American composer of classical music.
Steve Reich and Musicians, sometimes credited as the Steve Reich Ensemble, is a musical ensemble founded and led by the American composer Steve Reich. The group has premiered and performed many of Reich's works both nationally and internationally. In 1999, Reich received a Grammy Award for "Best Small Ensemble Performance " for the ensemble's performance of Music for 18 Musicians.
The Group for Contemporary Music is an American chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. It was founded in New York City in 1962 by Joel Krosnick, Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen and gave its first concert on October 22, 1962 in Columbia University's MacMillin Theatre. Krosnik left the ensemble in 1963. It was the first contemporary music ensemble based at a university and run by composers.
Christopher Norton was born in New Zealand and is a British pianist and composer. Norton obtained a degree in music from the University of Otago in 1974. He taught music in Wellington high schools, worked as a composer-in-schools for a year, and then freelanced as a composer, arranger and pianist.
Sebastian Currier is an American composer of music for chamber groups and orchestras. He was also a professor of music at Columbia University from 1999 to 2007.
Alexander Shchetynsky (Shchetinsky) is a Ukrainian composer. Born on 22 June 1960 in Kharkiv, in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. His work list includes compositions in various forms ranging from solo instrumental to orchestral, choral pieces and operas.
Joel Spiegelman is an American composer, conductor, concert pianist, harpsichordist, recording artist, arranger, author and teacher.
Wang Jie is a Chinese-born American composer.
Gregory Rose is a conductor, composer, arranger, and music director. He has conducted orchestral, choral and ensemble premieres throughout Europe and the Far East.
Andrey Rafailovich Kasparov is an Armenian-American pianist, composer, and professor, who holds both American and Russian citizenship.
Jenny Q Chai is a Chinese-American pianist. She is active throughout China, the United States, and Europe, and specializes in contemporary piano music. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Manhattan School of Music where she earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree.
Ola Gjeilo is a Norwegian composer and pianist, living in the United States.
Javelin is a composition for orchestra by American composer Michael Torke. It was finished in 1994.
Jan Williams is a percussionist, arts administrator, teacher, conductor, and composer who has championed avant-garde and progressive music in the United States. He is recognized as an important proponent of percussion performance and its literature.
Amy Williams is an American composer and pianist. She was born in Buffalo, New York, into a musical family, with her mother being a violist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and her father being a percussionist and professor emeritus at the university at Buffalo.
Jennifer Margaret Barker is a Scottish-American classical composer and pianist. Her compositional style is highly influenced by the landscape, culture and musical heritage of Scotland. She is Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Delaware. Her music has been recorded on the Naxos Records, Composers Recordings Inc., New World Records, Albany Records, Meyer Media and PnOVA Recordings labels. She is published by Boosey & Hawkes, Theodore Presser Company, Vanderbeek & Imrie Ltd., Southern Percussion and McKenna-Keddie Publishing.
Psalm 148 is a composition for voice and piano by Leonard Bernstein, a setting of Psalm 148 in English dated 1935. The art song is the composer's earliest surviving work, influenced by the music at the synagogue where he worshiped. He adapted the psalm text to metered poetry, and composed the work in a traditional fashion. He rediscovered the song in the 1980s, and it was first performed and recorded in 1993, and published by Boosey & Hawkes for soprano and piano.
Ailbhe McDonagh is an Irish concert cellist and composer. Her compositions have been published by Boosey & Hawkes, Hal Leonard, RIAM and ABRSM. She performs worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and teaches at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland.