biography..........
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BIOGRAPHY
He is a 2003-04 recipient of an American Composers
Forum (JCCP) commission, funding a new work for Brazilian recorder
virtuoso Clea Galhano, and harpsichordist Vivian Montgomery. Echoes
of Ferrara will premiere in Boston and Minneapolis in March, 2006. He is also the 2004 winner of the Connecticut State Music
Teachers commission competition. A Canticle in Shards, for flute,
clarinet, oboe, bassoon and piano, premiered at the South Church in
New Britain, Connecticut, on 5 November, 2005. He is the inaugural winner of
the Lester S. Abelson Foundation Commission Prize, organized and administered
by the Chicago Composers Forum. A new work for soprano and mixed chamber
ensemble, Fallen Eve, after the poetry of Ted Hughes, will
premiere on 17 December as part of the International Contemporary Ensemble’s (ICE) 2006
Chicago concert season. He is a 2004 winner of a Barlow
Endowment commission, through which he will write a new work for Duo46, a
Cyprus-based guitar and violin duo in residence at Eastern Mediterranean
University. Fancywork--inspired by the late 19th c. American arts
movement--will premiere as part of the Cortona Contemporary
Music Festival, just outside Florence, Italy, on 16 July,
2006. Several US performances, during the 2006-07 concert
season, will follow. His music has been featured on the
Skylight Chamber Music Series in Milwaukee, subscription concerts with the
Contemporary Music Consortium in Salt Lake City, the Music 98, 99 and 2000
Festivals in Cincinnati, the Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the
Warebrook Festival in Vermont. In August of 1998, his chamber work Lines
Written in Early Spring premiered at the Musique Autour des Vieilles Pierres
Festival in Normandy, France; the Chicago-based CUBE Ensemble performed the work
as part of the South Loop New Music Festival in March, 2003. His Impromptu
for solo piano was performed at the Alfio Gigli Festival in Bologna, Italy
in November, 2000, and included on the US tour performances of the Italian
pianist Emanuele Arciuli in November, 2002. (Mr. Arciuli has commissioned a
concerto from Mr. Gordon for the 2006 season.) The Riverside Symphony, resident
orchestra at Columbia University, selected Mr. Gordon's Concerto in One
Movement for Violin and Orchestra for performance and recording during its
International New Music program, in May, 1999. His Mise en scene was
selected by the Minnesota Orchestra for its Perfect Pitch program. The work was
performed and recorded at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, in October, 1999. One of
Mr. Gordon’s works--An imagined Poussin Triptych, for string
orchestra-- was selected for inclusion in Music at the Anthology’s Fourth
Annual Festival of Music, in May, 2003. Commissions have included new works for
the Milwaukee Symphony--which gave the world premiere of his Millenniumiana
on 31 December 1999, Music Director Andreas Delfs conducting--and the
Minneapolis-based vocal ensemble Dare to Breathe, which premiered Mr. Gordon's, Collage
a Trois Trobar, at the Weisman Art Gallery in Minneapolis in November, 1999.
The work has since received a highly acclaimed Chicago premiere. Cellist
Elizabeth Morrow commissioned Lorca Musica per cello solo, and has
performed it extensively in recital across the United States. Fanfare
magazine called the work, "the absolute standout . . . remarkable."
Lorca has been recorded on Ms. Morrow's debut CD, Soliloquy, and
was featured during the World Cello Congress in June, 2000. Mr. Gordon was
selected as a Fellow to the 2000 Composers Conference at Wellesley College,
where, during his residency, a new chamber work, Sonata da chroma, was
performed and recorded. Ensemble Aleph selected Gordon’s
chamber work, Caravaggio, for inclusion in the First International
Composers Forum, held in Cannes, France, 15-25 August, 2000. (Mr. Gordon was the
only American composer selected.) Following the ten day residency and
performances at the La Napoule Arts Foundation, Caravaggio received a
formal premiere at the Theatre Dunois in Paris, on a series of five concerts, in
October, 2000. Ensemble Aleph also toured this work through Greece, Italy and
the United Kingdom in 2001. Cool RED Cool, a new work for chamber sextet,
received the Andy Warhol Social Observer Prize, awarded in connection with the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The PAFA presented the world premiere of
this new work in Philadelphia on 13 September, 2000. (The Philadelphia
Inquirer called the work "a stunner . . . ") During the 2006-07 concert season, Ensemble
Aleph and the Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, DC
will collaborate on a series of concerts featuring Mr.
Gordon’s works. The two ensembles will join forces for
performances of Fallen Eve, after the poetry of Ted
Hughes, in concerts scheduled for Paris, Washington and
Philadelphia in March, 2007. The Channel Islands Ballet opened their
2002-03 season with a revival of Gordon’s three act ballet
after the Garcìa Lorca play, The House of Bernarda Alba.
Interiors of a Courtyard, commissioned for the German
guitar Duo Ahlert & Schwab and published by Wolfhead
Music in August, 2005, premiered at the La Guitarra Festival
in California in September, 2003; additional performances,
including a national radio broadcast on WFMT in Chicago and
a concert at Sundin Music Hall in Minneapolis, followed. La
tristesse durera toujours, commissioned by Ensemble
Aleph, premiered in connection with joint composer/ensemble
residencies at the University of Pittsburgh and Brigham
Young University in March, 2004. The European premiere, as
part of Ensemble Aleph's subscription season, took place at
the Theatre Dunois in Paris in May, 2004. L’Ensemble
Portique gave a series of premiere performances of wrecked
angels (flute, cello and guitar), commissioned for their
inaugural season, in May, 2003; the work was featured on the
Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival in Vermont, in July,
2004. A new work commissioned for UK-based ensemble
Passacaglia, Stanza della Segnatura (after the
Raphael frescoes in the Vatican), featured on a 2004 US
tour; the UK premiere is planned for Wigmore Hall, London,
dates to be determined. (The work will be published
in January, 2006 by the UK-based Peacock Press.) A concert
devoted to Mr. Gordon’s works was a part of the NorthRiver
Music Series at the Greenwich House in New York City, on 11
March, 2004. Note: For publicity purposes, please use the above text as
written, available as a PDF file. If space is limited, please
refer to the Condensed Program Biography.
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