Sebastian Currier: Bio

Bio
Sebastian Currier b. March 16, 1959, Providence, Rhode Island Sebastian Currier is the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award. Heralded as "music with a distinctive voice" by the New York Times and as "lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new" by the Washington Post, his music has been performed at major venues worldwide by acclaimed artists and orchestras. His chamber music was presented by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2007 and 2008, which including 3 world premieres. This December he returned to Berlin again for the premiere of his harp concerto Traces, which was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and performed by harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet under the baton of Donald Runnicles. Traces will receive its US premiere in July 2010 at the Grand Tetons Music Festival, again conducted by Maestro Runnicles. His music has been enthusiastically embraced by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, for whom he wrote Aftersong, which she performed extensively in the US and Europe, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Symphony Hall in Boston, the Barbican in London, and the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg. A critic from the London Times said, "if all his pieces are as emotionally charged and ingenious in their use of rethought tonality as this, give me more." His violin concerto, dedicated to Ms. Mutter, will be premiered by the New York Philharmonic in the 2010-2011 season. His Microsymph, referred to by the composer as a large-scale symphony that has been squeezed into only ten minutes, was commissioned by the American Composer Orchestra and premiered at Carnegie Hall. It has also been performed by such orchestras as the San Francisco Symphony, the Gewandhuas Orchestra, Eos Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra, and has been recorded by the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra with Hugh Wolff, conductor. He has also written works that involve electronic media and video. Nightmaze, a multimedia piece based on a text of Thomas Bolt in which the protagonist dreams he is rushing along a dark, enormous highway, where strange road signs loom up only to disappear into the night, has been performed by Network for New Music and the Mosaic Ensemble. The Philadelphia Inquirer said "every turn is breathtaking" and the New York Times, "Currier's rich and imaginative music sets the right tone, with its fractured and dissonant baroque-like gestures leading off like highway exits into the void and hinting at distant reservoirs of emotion and yearning. " His new CD of string quartets, recorded by the Cassatt Quartet, says the New York Times, "distances the present from the past, causing the listener to think about music itself." A CD of mixed chamber music, recorded by Music from Copland House will be released shortly. He has received many prestigious awards including the Berlin Prize, Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has held residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. He received a DMA from the Juilliard School; and from 1999-2007 he taught at Columbia University. Sebastian Currier is published by Boosey & Hawkes. January 2010 bio download (.doc format ) image download (.jpg - "right click" and "save as")

Bio

Sebastian Currier
b. March 16, 1959, Providence, Rhode Island

Sebastian Currier is the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award. Heralded as "music with a distinctive voice" by the New York Times and as "lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new" by the Washington Post, his music has been performed at major venues worldwide by acclaimed artists and orchestras.

His chamber music was presented by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2007 and 2008, which including 3 world premieres. This December he returned to Berlin again for the premiere of his harp concerto Traces, which was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and performed by harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet under the baton of Donald Runnicles. Traces will receive its US premiere in July 2010 at the Grand Tetons Music Festival, again conducted by Maestro Runnicles. Sebastian Currier 2008-P82-03 CREDIT Jeffrey Herman.

His music has been enthusiastically embraced by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, for whom he wrote Aftersong, which she performed extensively in the US and Europe, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Symphony Hall in Boston, the Barbican in London, and the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg. A critic from the London Times said, "if all his pieces are as emotionally charged and ingenious in their use of rethought tonality as this, give me more." His violin concerto, dedicated to Ms. Mutter, will be premiered by the New York Philharmonic in the 2010-2011 season.

His Microsymph, referred to by the composer as a large-scale symphony that has been squeezed into only ten minutes, was commissioned by the American Composer Orchestra and premiered at Carnegie Hall. It has also been performed by such orchestras as the San Francisco Symphony, the Gewandhuas Orchestra, Eos Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra, and has been recorded by the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra with Hugh Wolff, conductor.

He has also written works that involve electronic media and video. Nightmaze, a multimedia piece based on a text of Thomas Bolt in which the protagonist dreams he is rushing along a dark, enormous highway, where strange road signs loom up only to disappear into the night, has been performed by Network for New Music and the Mosaic Ensemble. The Philadelphia Inquirer said "every turn is breathtaking" and the New York Times, "Currier's rich and imaginative music sets the right tone, with its fractured and dissonant baroque-like gestures leading off like highway exits into the void and hinting at distant reservoirs of emotion and yearning. "

His new CD of string quartets, recorded by the Cassatt Quartet, says the New York Times, "distances the present from the past, causing the listener to think about music itself." A CD of mixed chamber music, recorded by Music from Copland House will be released shortly.

He has received many prestigious awards including the Berlin Prize, Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has held residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. He received a DMA from the Juilliard School; and from 1999-2007 he taught at Columbia University.

Sebastian Currier is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

January 2010

bio download (.doc format ) image download (.jpg - "right click" and "save as")