Composers
Celebrates
American Composers
Donald Erb (1927-2008) was Distinguished
Professor of Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He was
Composer-in-Residence with the St. Louis Symphony, andreceived hundreds
of performances by orchestras in the United States, Europe, South America,
Africa, and Australia. He has been honored with fellowships, commissions
and awards from the Ford, Guggenheim, Naumburg, and Rockefeller Foundations;
National Endowment for the Arts; and National Institute of Arts and
Letters.
Erik Lundborg (b.1948), a native of Montana,
teaches at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and holds degrees
from the New England Conservatory of Music and Columbia University.
Lundborg has had commissions, performances, and recordings by the leading
orchestras and new-music ensembles, including the Houston Symphony,
American Composers Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, Parnassus, Group for
Contemporary Music, the New Music Consort, Da Capo Chamber Players,
Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Light Fantastic Players, and the New
Jersey Percussion Ensemble. He is the recipient of a Warner/Nonesuch
commission and is also recorded on New World, CRI, and Opus One. Lundborg
has served on the boards of the American Composers Alliance and the
League of Composers - ISCM. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship,
three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a composer
grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music. He was a MacDowell
Fellow, and composed film music as a Fellow at the Sundance Institute.
Marga Richter (b.1926) was born in Reedsburg,
Wisconsin and received her early musical training in Minneapolis. She
earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at the Juilliard School,
studying composition with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti and
piano with Rosalyn Tureck. Among the sources of her many grants, commissions
and awards are the National Endowment for the Arts, Martha Baird Rockefeller
Fund, Harkness Foundation, Meet the Composer, National Federation of
Music Clubs and ASCAP. Richter's works, noted for their expressiveness
and economy of means, have been performed by 50 orchestras, including
the Buffalo Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra,
and the Milwaukee, Atlanta, Oakland, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Maracaibo
Symphonies.
Irwin Bazelon (1922-1995), a Chicago native,
moved to New York City in 1948. "Bud" Bazelon graduated from
DePaul University and later studied composition with Darius Milhaud.
Bazelon's music is characterized by a dynamic energy that reflects the
rhythmic pulse of city life. His rhythms are often derived from jazz
elements, but his music is essentially dramatic in nature. Bazelon was
awarded a Serge Koussevitzky Prize in 1982 in recognition of his "valuable
contribution to the music of our time." The commissioned work,
Fusions, has been performed by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble
and the University of Chicago Chamber Players.
Bazelon conducted his own works with the National Symphony, Detroit
Symphony, Kansas City Philharmonic, and many other orchestras, and conducted
the European premiere of his De-Tonations and took it on tour
in France with the Orchestre National de Lille. Bazelon has had commissions
from the New Orleans Philharmonic, Kansas City Philharmonic, American
Brass Quintet, Boehm Quintette, Empire Brass Quintet, and many other
groups, and has received support from the National Endowment for the
Arts, Ford Foundation, and and other sources. His works have also been
recorded on the CRI, Orion, Albany, and Louisville labels. A noted authority
on film music, Bazelon has written scores for documentary and art films,
industrial films, television, and theatre. He lectures at colleges and
universities, and his book, Knowing the Score - Notes on Film
Music is widely used on college campuses.