Sean Friar

Last updated
Sean Friar
Born1985 (age 3839)
Los Angeles, CA
Genres Contemporary classical, Avant-garde music, Experimental
Occupation(s) Composer
Instrument(s) Pianist
Years active2000-present
Labels New Amsterdam Records, Innova Recordings
Website www.seanfriar.com

Sean Friar (born 1985 in Los Angeles, California) is an American composer and pianist. He currently lives in Denver, Colorado. [1]

Contents

Biography

Sean Friar was born and raised in Los Angeles. He studied Music Composition and Psychology at UCLA where he graduated in 2007. He continued his studies at Princeton University, where he received an M.F.A. and Ph.D. in Composition. His primary teachers were Paul Chihara, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, and Dmitri Tymoczko.

Friar has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, New World Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, American Composers Orchestra, NOW Ensemble, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Present Music, and the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic. Other performers of his music include So Percussion, Ensemble Klang, Crash Ensemble, Psappha New Music Ensemble, Alter Ego, Ensemble Argento, and many others.

Friar is the recipient of the 2011 Rome Prize in Music Composition. [2] He serves as the chair of the composition department at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver and was previously on the Music Composition faculty at the USC Thornton School of Music.

Concert Works

Friar's music is known for its propulsive energy, [3] adventurous orchestration, [4] and sense of humor. [5]

Wind Ensemble

Orchestra/Large Ensemble

Solo Music

Chamber Music

Electronic

Awards

Recordings

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erkki-Sven Tüür</span> Estonian composer

Erkki-Sven Tüür is an Estonian composer.

Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl is the Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on musical grammar and cognition, rhythmic theory, pitch space, and cognitive constraints on compositional systems. He has written many orchestral and chamber works, three of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: Time after Time in 2001, String Quartet No. 3 in 2010, and Arches in 2011.

Mario Davidovsky was an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the United States, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He is best known for his series of compositions called Synchronisms, which in live performance incorporate both acoustic instruments and electroacoustic sounds played from a tape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Stucky</span> American composer

Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.

Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.

Chen Yi is a Chinese-American composer of contemporary classical music and violinist. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts (M.A.) in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Chen was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Si Ji, and has received awards from the Koussevistky Music Foundation and American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School and in 2012, she was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augusta Read Thomas</span> American composer (born 1964)

Augusta Read Thomas is an American composer and University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, where she is also director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.

Matthew John Hindson AM is an Australian composer.

Jennifer Walshe is an Irish composer, vocalist and artist.

Robert Paterson is an American composer of contemporary classical music, as well as a conductor and percussionist. His catalog includes over 100 compositions. He has been called a "modern day master" and is primarily known for his colorful orchestral works, large body of chamber music and clear vocal writing in his operas, choral works, vocal chamber works and song cycles.

David Frederick Stock was an American composer and conductor.

Gary Alan Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomi Räisänen</span> Finnish composer (born 1976)

Tomi Räisänen is a Finnish composer.

Marc-André Dalbavie is a French composer. He had his first music lessons at age 6. He attended the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied composition with Marius Constant and orchestration with Pierre Boulez. In 1985 he joined the research department of IRCAM where he studied digital synthesis, computer assisted composition and spectral analysis. In the early 1990s he moved to Berlin. Currently he lives in the town of St. Cyprien and teaches orchestration at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Michael Schelle, born January 22, 1950, in Philadelphia, is a composer of contemporary concert music. He is also a performer, conductor, author, and teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Ludwig (composer)</span> American composer of classical music (born 1974)

David Serkin Ludwig is an American composer, teacher, and Dean of Music at The Juilliard School. His uncle was pianist Peter Serkin, his grandfather was the pianist Rudolf Serkin, and his great-grandfather was the violinist Adolf Busch. He holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad. His choral work, The New Colossus, was performed at the 2013 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.

Richard Festinger is an American composer of contemporary classical music, pianist and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derrick Skye</span> Musical artist

Derrick Skye is a composer, conductor, musician, and educator based in the Los Angeles area who often integrates musical practices from cultures around the world in his works. The Los Angeles Times has described Skye's music as "something to savor" and "enormous fun to listen to." The Times (London) described Skye’s music as “deliciously head-spinning.”

Andy Akiho is an American musician and composer of contemporary classical music. A virtuoso percussionist based in New York City, his primary performance instrument is steel pans. He took interest in becoming a percussionist when his older sister introduced him to a drum set at the age of 9. Akiho first tried his hand at the steel pan when he became an undergraduate at the University of South Carolina. He began taking several trips to Trinidad after college to learn and play music. From there, he started writing pieces of his own.

References

  1. "Sean Friar". Philipedia. LA Phil. Archived from the original on 3 May 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  2. "American Academy in Rome Announces 2011-12 Rome Prize Winners". NewMusicBox. 18 April 2011.
  3. Schneider, John (28 May 2013). "PRESENT MUSIC'S MULTITUDE of Great Performances". EXPRESS Milwaukee. Archived from the original on 22 January 2014. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  4. Lowder, Bryan (19 July 2011). "Horns, harps and hubcaps: The classical orchestra needs some new instruments". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  5. Sheridan, Molly (15 January 2013). "Sounds Heard: Mariel Roberts – Nonextraneous Sounds". New Music Box. Retrieved 17 May 2015.[ permanent dead link ]
  6. "The 2007 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composers Awards". ASCAP. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  7. "Lee Ettelson Award". Composers Inc. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  8. "Composers / Copland House Residency Awards // Copland House …where America's musical past and future meet".
  9. "American Academy in Rome Announces 2011-12 Rome Prize Winners". 18 April 2011.
  10. http://www.ecpnm.com/news/38/nominees_selected_for_the_gaudeamus_prize_2011%5B%5D
  11. "The Charles Ives Awards". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  12. "Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant". Chamber Music America. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  13. "ASCAP Members Selected for 2013 Fromm Music Foundation Commissions". ASCAP. Retrieved 17 May 2015.