PAUL DRESHER

Composer, Snow in June. Internationally active composer noted for his ability to integrate diverse musical influences into his own coherent and unique personal style. He is pursuing many forms of musical expression including experimental opera and music theater, chamber and orchestral composition, live instrumental electro-acoustic chamber music performances, musical instrument invention and scores for theater, dance, and film. He has received commissions from the Library of Congress, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival USA, the Kronos Quartet, the San Francisco Symphony, California EAR Unit, Zeitgeist, Walker Arts Center, University of Iowa, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Theater Festival. He has performed or had his works performed throughout North America, Asia and Europe. Venues have included the Munich State Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Festival d'Automne in Paris, the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, the Minnesota Opera, Arts Summit Indonesia '95, Festival Interlink in Japan, and five New Music America Festivals. His evening-length collaboration with choreographer Margaret Jenkins, The Gates, premiered at Jacob's Pillow and opened the 1994 Serious Fun Festival at Lincoln Center. His most recently-completed projects include a collaboration with former Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud on his cello concerto Unequal Distemperament and the music theater work Sound Stage, for which Dresher designed and constructed a stage full of large-scale invented musical instruments. As Artistic Director of the Paul Dresher Ensemble, he has guided the creation of the "American Trilogy," a set of experimental operatic works that address different facets of American culture, in collaboration with writer/performer Rinde Eckert. The trilogy began with Slow Fire (1985-88), developed with Power Failure (1988-89) and was completed in 1990 with Pioneer, a collaboration that includes visual artist Terry Allen, actress Jo Harvey Allen, tenor John Duykers, and director Robert Woodruff. Recordings of his works are available on the Lovely Music, New World (with Ned Rothenberg), CRI, Music and Arts, O.O. Discs, BMG/Catalyst, MinMax, Starkland and New Albion labels.

Artists Offstage