Randall Woolf

Last updated

Randall Woolf (born August 23, 1959) is an American composer known for his diverse contemporary works for chamber orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo players, often combined with digital audio, turntables, and video. He studied composition privately with David Del Tredici and Joseph Maneri, and at Harvard, where he earned a Ph.D. He is a member of the Common Sense Composers Collective. He is composer-mentor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. In 1997, he composed a ballet version of Where the Wild Things Are in collaboration with Maurice Sendak and Septime Webre. He created three pieces for video and live instruments with directors Mary Harron (director of “American Psycho”) and John C. Walsh. He has worked frequently with John Cale, notably on his score of American Psycho . He re-created four of Nico’s songs for Cale’s tribute concert “On the Borderline”, sung by Peter Murphy, Lisa Gerrard, Sparklehorse, Stephin Merritt, Peaches, and Meshell Ndegeocello. He arranged over 40 of Cale’s songs for orchestra, including the entire Paris 1919 album (performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in January 2013), songs from The Velvet Underground and Nico, and "Music for a New Society". His works have been performed by Kathleen Supové, Jennifer Choi, Timothy Fain, Mary Rowell, Todd Reynolds, Ethel, conductor/flutist Ransom Wilson, Tara O’Connor, Lindsey Goodman, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Kronos Quartet, Turnmusic, Fulcrum Point, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Sonic Generator, Bang on a Can/SPIT Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, NakedEye Ensemble, and others.

Recordings and scores of most of Woolf's music are on his website, randallwoolf.com. His complete flute music is on http://flutterbyrandallwoolf.com/, an alluvial by CCA. An alluvial is a music streaming website, organized around a theme, like an album.

Woolf's orchestral work White Heat was commissioned by and premiered at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1989.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Cale</span> Welsh composer, singer-songwriter and record producer

John Davies Cale is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band The Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, drone, classical, avant-garde and electronic 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Boretz</span> American composer and music theorist

Benjamin Aaron Boretz is an American composer and music theorist.

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate is a Chickasaw classical composer and pianist. His compositions are inspired by North American Indian history, culture and ethos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lang (composer)</span> American composer

David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. Lang was nominated for an Academy Award for "Simple Song #3" from the film Youth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Gordon (composer)</span> American composer

Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the "Bang on a Can" music collective and festival. He grew up in Nicaragua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Tin</span> American composer

Christopher Chiyan Tin is an American composer of art music, often composed for film and video game soundtracks. His work is primarily orchestral and choral, often with a world music influence. He won two Grammy Awards for his classical crossover album Calling All Dawns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valgeir Sigurðsson</span> Musical artist

Valgeir Sigurðsson is an Icelandic record producer, mixer, composer, audio engineer and musician.

Greg Pattillo is an American beatboxing flutist originally from Seattle, but now operating in Brooklyn, New York. He was lauded by The New York Times as "the best person in the world at what he does." His performance videos on YouTube, showcasing "beatbox flute," have been viewed more than 70 million times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nico Muhly</span> American music composer

Nico Asher Muhly is an American contemporary classical music composer and arranger who has worked and recorded with both classical and pop musicians. A prolific composer, he has composed for many notable symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles and has had two operas commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Since 2006, he has released nine studio albums, many of which are collaborative, including 2017's Planetarium with Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner & James McAlister. He is a member of the Icelandic music collective and record label Bedroom Community.

Gediminas Gelgotas is a Lithuanian composer, conductor and self-performing artist.

Jennifer Choi is a Korean-American violinist based in New York City. Choi graduated from the Juilliard School and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has performed in a variety of settings including solo violin, chamber music, and creative improvisation and performed with the Oregon Symphony, the Portland Columbia Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and the String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC) among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryce Dessner</span> American musician

Bryce David Dessner is an American composer and guitarist based in Paris, as well as a member of the rock band the National. Dessner's twin brother Aaron is also a member of the group. Together they write the music, in collaboration with lead singer / lyricist Matt Berninger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriel Kahane</span> American singer-songwriter

Gabriel Kahane is an American composer and singer-songwriter.

The Dessoff Choirs is an independent chorus based in New York City. Margarete Dessoff established the organization in 1930 as the union of two choirs she directed, the Adesdi chorus and the A Cappella Singers, whence the plural Choirs. Today, the plural connotes Dessoff's various ensembles, which range from the large Dessoff Symphonic Choir, which appears with major orchestras, to the Dessoff Chamber Choir, which performs in more intimate settings.

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

Kenji Bunch is an American composer and violist living in Portland, Oregon. Bunch currently serves as the artistic director of Fear No Music and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic. He is also the director of MYSfits, the most advanced string ensemble of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gene Pritsker</span> Musical artist

Gene Pritsker is a Russian-born composer, guitarist, rapper and record producer living in New York City. He moved to the United States with his family in 1978 and lived in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He attended the Manhattan School of Music from 1990 to 1994 where he studied composition with Giampaolo Bracali.

Valerie Coleman is an American composer and flutist as well as the creator of the wind quintet Imani Winds. Coleman is a distinguished artist of the century who was named Performance Today's 2020 Classical Woman of the year and was listed as “one of the Top 35 Women Composers” in the Washington Post. In 2019, Coleman's orchestral work, Umoja, Anthem for Unity, was commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Coleman's Umoja is the first classical work by a living African American woman that the Philadelphia Orchestra has performed.

Darryl Kubian is an American composer, thereminist, violinist, and audio/video engineer. His compositions have been commissioned and performed by North American orchestras, such as the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Omaha Symphony, and he has written soundtrack scores for the Wildlife Conservation Society, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Pangolin Pictures, NHK, CBS, The Learning Channel, and others. Darryl performs and records as a thereminist, including chamber and solo works by Herb Deutsch, Martinu, and others, and has also been a featured soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia of New York, and the NJ Symphony on theremin. He was the featured theremin soloist for the Lincoln Center Festival production of Danny Elfman's Music from the Films of Tim Burton. Darryl Kubian is a member of the first violin section of the NJ Symphony, and was the principle second violinist of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Indigo Fox Media, Kubian's New Jersey-based audio/video production company, has recorded artists such as the Emerson String Quartet, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, members of the NY Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, and the Metropolitan Opera, among many others. He is married to violinist JoAnna Farrer.

References