Sebastian Currier

Sebastian Currier
Currier at the 2015 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

Sebastian Currier (born March 16, 1959) is an American composer of music for chamber groups and orchestras. He was also a professor of music at Columbia University from 1999 to 2007.

Life

Currier was born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and was raised in Providence, Rhode Island, in a family of talented musicians, including his brother Nathan Currier, also a noted composer. Sebastian Currier received degrees from the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music. His compositions include Crossfade, written for two harps, and Microsymph, described as a "30-minute symphony compressed into 10 minutes."

In October 2005, members of the Berlin Philharmonic performed an entire evening of his works, including the premiere of Remix.[1]

Currier completed the orchestration of Stephen Albert's Symphony No. 2, part of which was unfinished at the time of Albert's death.[2] It was subsequently recorded on Naxos Records along with Albert's Symphony No. 1 Riverrun, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has recorded Currier's Aftersong, which the composer dedicated to her. On June 2, 2011, she also premiered his Time Machines (composed in 2007 and reworked by the composer in 2011) with the Slovak Roman Patkoló playing the contrabasso and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Alan Gilbert.[3] His Piano Concerto was premiered in April 2007 by Emma Tahmizian.

Currier has received a Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, for Static, and a 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Manhattan School of Music.

On March 12, 2013, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton announced the appointment of Currier as Artist-in-Residence, his term to begin on July 1, 2013.[4]

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Sebastian Currier Snapshot Page". Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. Retrieved 2008-08-11.
  2. ^ Schwartz, Steve (August 2007). "ALBERT: Symphony No. 1 'RiverRun'. Symphony No. 2. - Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Paul Polivnick". Classical CD Review. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  3. ^ Anthony Tommasini (June 4, 2011), "A Couple of First Encounters, One Including Musicians", The New York Times
  4. ^ The Institute Letter, Spring 2013, Sebastian Currier Appointed as Artist-In-Residence
  5. ^ "2007- Sebastian Currier". Archived from the original on 2014-07-24.
  6. ^ "Sebastian Currier". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Archived from the original on 2011-06-22. Retrieved 2010-07-18.