Composer Chats

Jason K. Nitsch
  • 5.0 (2)
  • MUSIC INTERVIEWS

Composer Chat is a podcast where we talk a little bit about music, a little bit about life, and a whole lot about whatever we feel like at the moment! Each episode I am joined by a special guest composer and we will chat about their pathway towards success in their musical career!

  1. 1D AGO

    3.12 Evan VanDoren

    Evan VanDoren is an in-demand music composer regularly commissioned to create engaging & award-winning music for marching bands and concert ensembles at all skill levels. Evan’s music is regularly performed around the country, including premiere performances at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention and the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. In 2025, Evan was recognized as a National Finalist for The American Prize in Composition for his works, Luminosities & Prophetic Dances. Evan serves as the brass composer & arranger for the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps, based in Santa Clara, California. Additionally, Evan is an active clinician and has presented for Drum Corps International, the Music Educators National Convention, the Texas Bandmasters Association, the Texas Music Educators Association, and Music for All. He regularly consults with music programs nationwide. Before devoting his life to creating music, Evan was a band director at Cedar Park High School in Cedar Park, Texas. During that time, the band was awarded multiple marching state championships and national recognition. He received a Bachelor's in Music Education with Honors from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. Currently, he lives in Cedar Park, Texas, with his wife, Katie, daughters Anna & Sara, and their dog, Cooper. https://www.evanvandoren.com

    56 min

  2. APR 21

    3.11 - Mark Simpson

    Mark Simpson (b. 1988) is a UK-based composer of an acclaimed body of work and an internationally-renowned clarinettist, whose programmes champion music new and old. His music for the stage, orchestra, voices, and chamber forces has been celebrated by leading conductors, instrumentalists, and ensembles ; across a myriad of forms, poetic intensity is matched by technical assurance and expressive generosity.Much of Simpson’s music takes place after dark. When Simpson finished his chamber opera Pleasure the clock read five am. Pleasure is set in the toilets of a gay nightclub. In that nocturnal space confessions are made and lives come into focus; it sees Simpson unleash music of mystery and abandon by turns. Night Music was the title of a taut and elusive disc of chamber works released in 2016 on NMC.The somnolent world of dream and hallucination has shaped numerous pieces: Israfel for orchestra comes from the candle-burning poetry of Edgar Allan Poe; two works under the title Darkness Moves - for clarinet (2016) and horn (2024) respectively - take their names from the hallucinogenic imagination of Henri Michaux. The Immortal , an oratorio, finds a creative wellspring in the induced trances of Victorian mediums and occultists, who drew the curtains, lit the candles, and tried to channel the spirit world. Simpson has long come alive at night - as a youngster in Liverpool attending concerts at the Philharmonic Hall he sneaked into the Royal Box with his friends after the house lights went down. Listening to his music is not far from taking his hand in a séance.As the first ever winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year prizes in 2006, Simpson’s career has always reflected the indivisibility of his composing and performing selves. This national acclaim led to a precocious Wigmore Hall debut, as well as his first major works as a composer, now published worldwide by Boosey & Hawkes. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, the University of Oxford, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Julian Anderson.A stint as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award-winner followed, succeeded in turn by a position as BBC Philharmonic Composer-in-Association. He composed sparks for the 2012 Last Night of the Proms. A debut chamber opera Pleasure (2016), to a libretto by Melanie Challenger, was commissioned by Opera North, Britten-Pears Arts, and the Royal Opera House.Israfel premiered with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Litton in 2014. The 12-minute piece evokes a Koranic angel imagined by Edgar Allan Poe, whose heart strings are a lute and who sings with the utmost sweetness. It captures Simpson’s fascination with the otherworldly, and, as its subject is a lyre, recalls Orpheus, the source of all music. “I wanted to write a piece that sang, floated, morphed, moved, moved us, lifted us, had power, had fragility, had hope, uncertainty, beauty”, Simpson writes. Its opening sets out the liquid transformations and elevated sensuality that preoccupy his work.Whilst his music searches out transcendental territories, Simpson’s demotic opera Pleasure turns back to the guts of the world. The touring debut production, directed by Tim Albery, saw Lesley Garrett play a toilet cleaner in a gay nightclub who sees, channels, and sings the largest of feelings, meeting a pair of lost souls and a ketchup-covered drag queen. “It turns out to be the perfect operatic subject”, Alfred Hickling wrote in The Guardian, “squalid and earthbound yet imbued with a radiant, almost mythic quality.” It received its German premiere in 2023 at Theater Erfurt.Simpson’s tone poem A mirror-fragment (2008), written for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, was his first exploration of Melanie Challenger’s writing, inspired by the opening poem of her collection Galatea. At 11 minutes, A mirror-fragment opens concerts rather than collections of poetry, and captures a style that is both nervily present and plugged into the depthless, mythic past. It was unfinished artistic business. Simpsons suggested the scenario for Pleasure the first night they met - another nocturnal mission.The Immortal arose in turn. Commissioned by the Manchester International Festival and premiered by the BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Chamber Choir, EXAUDI, and baritone Mark Stone, it is is an anguished forty minute span, drawing on texts from the Society of Psychical Research, showing the contortions of the spirit as it confronts the abyss of mortality; The Guardian called it an “anti-Gerontius”. Its ‘Lachrymosa’ sees strings and voices wrung out as exhausted tears flow, before a wounded baritone solo. It won the Southbank Sky Arts Award for classical music in 2016. The same searching quality belongs to his motet Ave Maria (2016), written for ORA Singers, and featured on their album Stella - fitful music of a sleepless consciousness.Simpson’s Cello Concerto (2016-18), written for Leonard Elschenbroich and the BBC Philharmonic, follows a recognisable fast-slow-fast pattern, but, like The Immortal, leans on achingly expressive unfurling melodic lines from the soloist, offering music that is both emotionally compelling as well as mysterious. The Times called it "airborne, kaleidoscopic, swirling with life..contemporary music with a pulsing heart…irresistible”.A Violin Concerto followed in 2021. At 38 minutes it is among Simpson’s most substantive orchestral statements, and its five-movement structure gives the concerto a symphonic richness and complexity in the handling of its material. It is “full-on, big-hearted…a delirious outpouring” (The Scotsman); the Financial Times called it “a concerto that will blow the mind”. The emotional effusiveness that struck reviewers all takes place within a keenly wrought structure. It is a ruthlessly inventive and virtuosic tour de force for its champion Nicola Benedetti, who debuted the work with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda in spring 2021. It was co-commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and has since appeared at the Concertgebouw and Usher Hall.The emotional range across its five interlocking parts shows Simpson’s expressive confidence and open-heartedness. “If a concert really grabs me”, Simpson said in an interview, “I can feel the part of my brain that’s on fire”. The tarantella finale of the concerto must’ve been composed with this in mind. It’s a roof-raising final peroration, swept along by castanets, that also turns back towards the lamentation and introspection that began the work.“It’s music that’s pitched at a level of sustained emotional intensity”, Tom Service wrote of Simpson’s work in The Guardian, “a heightened, dangerous, disorienting place where Simpson wants to take his listeners.” This is exemplified in Ariel (2009), one selection from an outstanding body of chamber compositions. Scored for the same instruments as Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, with textural nuance provided by basset clarinet, it takes its title and energies from Slyvia Plath. The 15-minute work has a tender melodic motif at its heart, which appears in fractured and partial ways. Its final minutes see it realised in an intense and sensuous release, before dissolving and collapsing into darkness again.Plath’s poem ends by looking at the sun - a “cauldron of morning”. Simpson’s Geysir for wind ensemble, composed as a companion work to Mozart’s “Gran Partita” Serenade, is a cooking vessel all of its own. An award-winning recording released on Orchid Classics, it draws on Mozart’s...

    58 min

  3. APR 14

    3.10 - Kira Zeeman Rugen

    Dr. Kira Zeeman Rugen is a composer, conductor, academic professor, and professional soprano from Scottsdale, Arizona. Kira currently serves as the Director of Choral and Vocal Activities as a residential faculty member at Scottsdale Community College. Now in her twenty-eighth year as a music educator, she conducts Concert Choir and ArtieVox (Jazz Vocal Ensemble) at Scottsdale Community College and is the music director for Musical Theater. Previously, she worked as the Director of Choral Activities and Musical Director for Musical Theater at Arizona Christian University. Before that, she worked at Grand Canyon University, teaching Music History, Conducting, and Fundamentals of Music and Culture for Diverse Learners. As a Faculty Associate at Arizona State University, Kira conducted Choral Union, a 100+-member community choir, and Schola Cantorum, a SATB choir, predominantly for music majors. ​ As a composer, Kira’s choral compositions (found at the Fred Bock Group/Gentry Publications and MusicSpoke.com, Sheet Music Plus, Direct Music Plus, and JW Pepper) have been performed worldwide. She is a 2022 winner in the HerVoice Music Composition Competition in Chicago and was mentored by Chen Yi as a part of that prize. She was recently named the 3rd Place Winner in The American Prize, professional choral composition division, an Honorary Mention for The American Prize pops division, and a multi-finalist for The American Prize and the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for Performance of American Music competition. Kira’s choral compositions have been featured and commissioned by ensembles such as Vancouver Youth Chorus under Carrie Tennant, AdVocem in Poland under Michael Malec, Resonance of Singapore conducted by Toh Ban Sheng, Phoenix Children’s Chorus under Troy Meeker, Phoenix Boys Chorus under Herbert Washington, Reveille Men’s Chorus under Keith Koster, Chandler Children’s Chorus under Aimee Stewart, Northwest Oklahoma State University Singers under Dr. Karsten Longhurst, CU Boulder Chamber Singers under Dr. Greg Gentry, THE CHORAL PROJECT under Daniel Hughes, Cor Cantiamo under Dr. Eric Johnson, Phoenix Chamber Choir under Dr. Nicholle Andrews, Kansas City Chorale under Charles Bruffy, Orpheus Men’s Choir under Dr. Brook Larson, Pinnacle Presbyterian’s Chancel Choir under Dr. Ilona Kubiaczyk-Adler, Carolyn Eynon Singers, Phoenix Chorale under Christopher Gabbitas and the Master Chorale of Flagstaff under Dr. Tom Peterson. In November 2017, Kira traveled to France to conduct the premiere of her composition, Saint-Brieuc Magnificat, with the Saint-Brieuc Cathedral Children and Youth Choir. Under the direction of their conductor, Goulven Airault, the choir went on to perform the work for the Pueri Cantors in Congrès de Barcelone and on tour in the cathedrals Saint-Malo de Dinan, Sainte-Croix de Sant Malo, Saint-Martin de Janze, Saint Sauveur La Rochelle, Sanctuaire de Rocamadour, and Castell de Callonge. Kira truly enjoys her work as a film composer, and her film scores have won awards at over fifty worldwide film festivals. Kira is the Artistic Director and founder of Solis - Choir of the Sun, a professional choir. Initially composed of ASU students, Kira transformed the group from an amateur collegiate choir into a fully paid professional vocal ensemble in the Phoenix area. Now in their fifteenth season, Solis collaborations include high-profile performances with Andrea Bocelli in Live Concert, The Eagles Hotel California Tour, Zelda, Symphony of the Goddesses, Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy, plus performing with composer Ramin Djawadi for the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience. Additionally, they have performed with Irish band The Chieftains and were invited to perform at the American Choral Directors Association Conference in Pasadena, California. Solis continues to perform throughout the valley in local arts concert series, focusing primarily on early music and contemporary choral premieres. In addition to her work as a conductor and composer, Kira has amassed extensive experience as a soprano soloist. She is noted as having an “angelic and supple” and “haunting” sound. She has performed with Norvis Early Music in Durham, England; at Carnegie Hall’s Young Artist Concert Series under Ton Koopman; at Korea’s Incheon International Choral Festival; and she toured with Anúna (Ireland’s National Choir) under Michael McGlynn throughout Ireland, Japan and China. Kira is a soloist on the album, From Graceful Fields, released by Canyon Records, featuring the eleven-time Grammy Award nominee, R. Carlos Nakai, on Native American flute. She sang for several seasons with Arizona Opera and Utah Opera. Kira is in her 21st season as a soprano with the Phoenix Chorale, with whom she has won two Grammy Awards. Kira is a soloist on their Spotless Rose album, which won a Grammy for Best Small Ensemble in February 2009. Kira sang on the Phoenix Chorale’s albums Northern Lights and Rachmaninoff’s All-Night-Vigil, which won the Grammy for Best Choral Performance in February 2016. Kira is also the featured soloist on their album Eternal Rest, a recording on the Chandos label. Kira has performed as a soloist in the Phoenix Chorale's concerts at ACDA conventions in Salt Lake City, Seattle, Kansas City’s Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, and in the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. She received a favorable mention in the New York Times in a review for the NYC concerts. Additionally, she sang on the Phoenix Chorale’s recent Signum Records albums, Sun, Moon, Stars, and Rain, and her arrangement of “The Wexford Carol” was recorded on their release, The Christmas Album. ​ Starting in 1998, Kira taught high school choir and orchestra in the Phoenix area for six years. Then, she served as the children and youth choir director for eleven years at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in North Scottsdale. Kira received her Bachelor of Arts at Weber State University in 1998 where she studied choral conducting, viola performance and vocal performance under Dr. Mark Henderson. She earned her Master’s in Music Education with an emphasis in Vocal Performance at Arizona State University in 2002 under Dr. George Umberson. She then graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting and a cognate in Vocal Performance at Arizona State University in May 2013 under Dr. Gregory Gentry. https://www.kirarugen.com

    1h 1m

  4. APR 7

    3.9 - Dawn Sonntag

    Olympia, Washington based composer Dawn Sonntag’s music has been called “hauntingly lyrical,” “profound,” and “freshly relevant.” Her works have been performed by ensembles and soloists across the U.S. and in Europe, including Burning River Baroque, the Delgani Quartet, the Ensign Chorus and Orchestra in Seattle, the Cleveland Chamber Chorus, the Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival Orchestra, the Cleveland Opera Theater, and many more. Her art songs have been widely performed in recital and are included in recordings by sopranos Michelle Murray Viertek (Every Tiny Thing) and Megan Ihnen (Currents in Time) and by Burning River Baroque duo Malina Rauschenfels and Paula Most, who commissioned the cycle Loves Poems in the Time of Climate Change. Her music has been broadcast on public radio in Ohio and Oregon and is published by Carl Fischer, North Star Music, and Dagny Press. ased on the true story East Prussian refugees during World War II, Sonntag’s first opera, Verlorene Heimat (Lost Homeland), was awarded Honorable Mention in the 2021 American Prize for Opera, Musical Theater, Dance, and Film composition. Her opera For Life, with a libretto by Harvard-trained psychologist Kermit Cole, was commissioned for the Cleveland Opera’s Operas in Place Festival, which won the 2023 Opera America Award for Digital Excellence in Artistic Creation. Sonntag was selected as the Commissioned Composer of the Year for the Music Teachers National Association state chapters in both Ohio (2010) and Washington State (2021). She won the Inge Pitler Prize for lied performance in both piano (1998) and voice (1999). As winner of the Kenwood Symphony Masters Concerto and Aria competition in Minneapolis, she performed the orchestrated art songs of Edvard Grieg. Sonntag has been the recipient of an American-Scandinavian Foundation grant; a Foreign Language Area Studies fellowship to study advanced Norwegian in Oslo, Norway; and a Swedish government international cultural fellowship as a resident composer at the International Centre for Composers in Visby, Sweden. She has conducted college, university, community, and church choirs across the U.S. and in Germany and Norway, including the Heidelberg International Choir; the Chor des Collegium Artium in Heidelberg; the Oslo International Summer School Choir; the Leif Eriksson International Choir in Minneapolis; and the Hiram College Chamber Singers and Western Reserve Women’s Chorus, which she founded. Sonntag has also conducted orchestral works as a participant in European conducting master classes in Berlin and Bacau, Rumania. Sonntag holds a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the University of Minnesota, where she studied composition with Alex Lubet, voice with Wendy Zaro, and choral conducting with Kathy Salzman Romey. She received her Master of Music at Ohio State University under the tutelage of Hilary Apfelstadt, conducting, Eileen Davis, voice, and Seymour Fink, piano. A self-taught pianist until the age of eighteen, she began studying trumpet at age nine. She completed most of her undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, studying trumpet with Wayne Cook, piano with Armand Basile, voice performance with Yolanda Marculescu, and collaborative piano with Jeffrey Peterson, counterpoint with John Downey, and choral arranging with Yehuda Yanay while working as a pianist for the Milwaukee Ballet, conducting church choirs, and teaching privately. After relocating to San Antonio and then El Paso, Texas, she completed her Bachelor of Music in voice performance at the University of Texas at El Paso. Currently Sonntag is Director of Music at Westminster Presbyterian Church and a teaches music composition at Pacific Lutheran University. She has served on the faculties of Gonzaga University, where she taught music theory and composition; the University of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she taught music theory and accompanied the choir; and Hiram College, where she served as Department Chair for several years and taught composition, theory, private lessons in voice, piano, and composition, music history, music entrepreneurship, study abroad courses, and conducted the choirs. She also held graduate teaching assistantships at the University of Minnesota and the Ohio State University. In Germany, she taught English as a Second Language at several language schools, including the Volkshochschule Heidelberg and the Heidelberg Institut für Fremdsprache. She also has extensive experience as a church musician. In addition to her activities as a composer and performer, Sonntag has been actively involved in environmental and human rights advocacy. Her successful battle to stop a Washington State commission from building a mega airport in rural Western Washington is described in her forthcoming book, Nothing but Trees. She is an avid hiker, cyclist, and kayaker. https://dawnsonntag.com

    48 min

  5. APR 1

    April Fools - John Pasternak Takeover

    Jason Nitsch’s music is equally at home on the concert stage, in outdoor venues, and streaming online, reaching the broadest audience of musicians, performers, and music enthusiasts possible. As a composer dedicated to the exploration of new ideas, his music has evolved over a 25-year career to incorporate more and more non-traditional elements, such as effect tracks, sound drops, and enveloping electroacoustic works combining live and pre-recorded elements. Much of his work is rooted in a large ensemble context; his wind ensemble works have received thousands of performances throughout the US including at Midwest, State Music Conferences including Texas, Colorado, and Kentucky Music Educators Associations, Colleges and Universities like Baylor University, the University of North Texas, and Syracuse University, and at other regional music festivals (ITEA). In recent years Jason has focused on more intimate chamber musical settings, including collaborations with solo musicians such as trumpeter Kate Amrine , Cellist Carolyn Regula (The Cello Doll) and vocalist Michaela Catapano, as well as chamber groups across the US (Chicago Brass Choir), while continuing expand his sizable catalog of works for larger instrumental forces. Jason is well known for his work as an educator, dedicated to providing young promising musicians with the foundational experiences on which a lifetime of music-making can be built, and is pursuing research into the ways that music students process their experiences as learners and performers. Combining his long career in music with a deep love of science fiction and a natural talent for storytelling, Jason recently launched his first podcast, “Beyond the Belt: Adventures from the Outer Rim.” “Beyond the Belt” is a collection of 8 original dramatic science fiction episodes for which he served as writer, producer, and composer. It tells the story of a scientific research experiment gone horribly wrong. With Zombies (of course!). Jason has released three digital albums in recent years, including the Season One Soundtrack from the Beyond the Belt podcast, “1000 Steps to Nowhere", a collection of chamber music compositions, and most recently “The Dead Teach the Living,” featuring nine vocal collaborations ranging from solo works to Orchestral compositions. The title track was named a finalist for the 2025 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, earning an Honorable Mention. Jason is a lover of dogs, video games, and all things Star Wars (yes, even the prequels). He is also a husband, father of two budding musicians, and a patron of art forms that stretch traditional boundaries. He currently lives in Waxhachie, TX with his family. He can occasionally be sighted lurking at select music conferences. www.jasonnitsch.com

    1h 33m

  6. MAR 24

    3.8 - Beth Anderson

    Beth Anderson (M.F.A./M.A.) is a critically acclaimed composer of neo-romantic, avant-garde music, text-sound works, and musical theater. Born in Kentucky, she studied primarily in California with John Cage, Terry Riley, Robert Ashley and Larry Austin at Mills College and U.C. Davis. She is a member of Broadcast Musicians Inc. (BMI), the American Composers' Forum, International Alliance of Women in Music, the New Music USA, Poets and Writers, and New York Women Composers. She resides in New York City where she produces Women's Work, a concert series, for Greenwich House Arts. https://www.beand.com

    48 min

  7. MAR 17

    3.7 - Paula Dreyer

    Paula Dreyer is a classically-trained contemporary composer and pianist living in the Pacific Northwest who seeks to inspire, include, and connect individuals through music. She has created her own, unique sound – weaving a wide range of influences from the Romantic and Impressionistic eras, film composers, Spanish music, and solo improvisation albums from the masters. Listeners are transported through her music that is sophisticated yet intimate, melancholic yet hopeful, hauntingly melodic, and rhythmically alive. Combining multi-disciplinary art forms and collaborating with various artistic mediums, Paula’s shows are a transporting, mesmerizing experience for the eyes, ears, and heart. Frequent collaborator and award-winning choreographer Kevin Jenkins says this: “Paula infuses her music with perfectly phrased emotion that makes my mind explode with movement concepts. The only challenge is keeping up with her brilliance.” Kevin has choreographed her compositions and recordings with Jacob’s Pillow featuring dancers from Boston Ballet, as well as St. Louis Ballet, Ballet 5:8 in Chicago, and various dance conservatories. San Francisco-based artist Adrian Arias has created paintings inspired directly by her music, many of which will be featured in her concerts. An avid performer, Paula has played at world-class venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Green Music Center, and with the Santa Rosa and Monterey Symphonies. Paula was a band member for the legendary show Beach Blanket Babylon, which the New York Times calls “a treasured San Francisco staple.” She was the winner of the Montréal Classical Music Festival and was a chamber music semi-finalist in the Concert Artist Guild Competition at New York’s Merkin Hall. She was the recipient of the full scholarship Poné Award during her master’s degree in Chamber Music Performance in San Francisco. She also holds music degrees from McGill University in Montréal and Interlochen Arts Academy and studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. She completed an artist residency at Obras in Portugal, where she composed much of the music for her Little Gems for Piano books. The books have sold thousands of copies worldwide and were recently published in China. Paula is also a well-respected educator and directs a private teaching studio in addition to presenting internationally to piano teachers and adjudicating various festivals. In her debut original solo album Central Star, Paula uses music as a soul awakening, energy shifting experience. During these tumultuous times when we can feel disconnected and distracted, she seeks to alter the vibration of the room- providing fuel for the soul through the unifying force of music. Central Star tells a personal story about the powers of imagination, intuition, and creative expression during challenging times of transition, as well as offering a therapeutic medium during everyday life. This spellbinding album speaks to the triumphant yet calming creative spirit and evokes feelings from the universal human experience. Prepare to elevate your spirit and embark on a sonic and visual journey like no other. Paula currently spearheads her concert series Piano Flow Live and her improv program Piano Flow. Piano Flow Live combines live music, outdoor adventure and visual arts. She gathers local creatives such as musicians, artists, photographers, and filmmakers to create unique events under the umbrella of the Bend Creative Music Project. You can find her performing innovative shows in ski lodges and along the Deschutes River. She recently completed a tour of China. She was invited to present her Little Gems books and perform candlelit concerts in eight cities across China. A dynamic pianist, composer, and educator, Paula captivates global audiences through her Little Gems for Piano books, albums, concerts, and the transformative Piano Flow improvisation program, fostering inspiration and connection worldwide. Paula lives in the mountain town of Bend, Oregon with her husband and their two daughters. https://pauladreyer.com

    43 min

  8. MAR 10

    3.6 - Lee Actor

    Composer and conductor Lee Actor (b. 1952 in Denver, Colorado) was one of five composers selected in November 2014 as an "Honored Artist of the American Prize", the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed. He has won a number of awards for his compositions, most recently for Symphony No. 2, third place winner of the 2019-20 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, Dance Rhapsody, winner of the 2016 Austin Civic Orchestra Composition Competition and second place winner of the 2011 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, Redwood Fanfare, a winner of the 2009 Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra Fanfare Competition, and Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, the First Prize Winner in the 2007 International Horn Society Composition Contest. Divertimento for Small Orchestra was a finalist for the 2016 American Prize in Orchestra Composition, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra received a Special Judge's Citation for the 2015 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, Concerto for Timpani and Orchestrawas a finalist for the 2014 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, String Quartet No. 1was a finalist for the 2014 American Prize in Chamber Music Composition, Circus Symphonicus was a finalist in the Columbia Orchestra's 2013 American Composer Competition, Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra was a finalist for the 2013 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was a finalist for the 2012 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, Variations and Fugue for Orchestra was a finalist in both the Columbia Orchestra's 2007 American Composer Competition and the Holyoke Civic Symphony's 2005 Composition Competition, and Prelude to a Tragedy was selected as a finalist in the Columbia Orchestra's 2005 American Composer Competition. Conductor/composer Robert Ian Winstin has written, “Lee Actor's Prelude to a Tragedy is one of the best written new works I've had the privilege to conduct or record. It is clear, precise and very tightly written. It has a style that is completely original … an incredible orchestral tour de force as written by an immensely talented composer.” The CD including Mr. Winstin’s performance of this piece with the Kiev Philharmonic was released by ERM Media in March 2005. Actor has received commissions from the Palo Alto Philharmonic, the Redwood Symphony, the Mission Chamber Orchestra, the Silicon Valley Symphony, the Saratoga Symphony, the University of South Dakota, the Skaneateles Festival, the South Bay Guitar Society, the Peninsula Symphony Orchestra, and pianist Benny Gambino. His works have been performed by more than 90 orchestras and bands in the U.S. and around the world. His first CD of orchestral works was released by MMC Recordings in June 2005, which Records International called “...one of the best new symphonic discs to have come our way.” A second CD was released by Albany Records in April 2008, featuring Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, which was nominated for 2008 “Best of the Year” classical CD by Classical 94.5/WNED in Buffalo, NY. A third CD of orchestral music, featuring Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra and Dance Rhapsody, was released in April 2011 by Navona Records, and subsequently named to Audiophile Audition’s list of “Best of the Year Discs for 2011”. Navona Records released Actor's fourth solo CD in February 2015, featuring Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Symphony No. 3. Actor’s orchestral music is characterized by its dramatic impact and emotional expressivity, featuring a striking use of harmony, counterpoint, motivic development, and lyricism with a fresh, modern flavor. These attributes are most prominent in his large-scale dramatic works. Conductor Jason Klein has written of Symphony No. 1: “Lee Actor ... is a composer of remarkable skill whose 3-movement symphony has strength, character, and generous helpings of brilliance and humor”, and described Symphony No. 2 as “… energetic, intense, and highly polished.” In a review of Concerto for Violin and Orchestrafor the San Mateo County Times, Keith Kreitman wrote: “This is a major work deserving of national attention. … This concerto verges on masterpiece”. In July 2008, Concerto for Horn and Orchestra was performed at the 40th International Horn Symposium by the Colorado Symphony and soloist Bernhard Scully, principal horn of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The piece has subsequently received numerous performances, and is quickly becoming a favorite of horn players around the world. His work has been characterized by conductor Kirk Trevor as “… music of the highest quality in craftsmanship, inventiveness, and imagination.” A former violinist with the Albany (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra, Actor has advanced degrees in both engineering, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and music composition, from San Jose State University. He has studied composition with Donald Sur, Brent Heisinger, Charles Jones, and Andrew Imbrie, and conducting with Angelo Frascarelli, David Epstein and Higo Harada. Actor was named Composer-in-Residence of the Palo Alto Philharmonic in 2002, following his appointment as Assistant Conductor in 2001, and was Assistant Conductor of the Nova Vista Symphony from 2008 to 2010. He is a member of ASCAP®, who recently named Actor the recipient of an ASCAPlus award for the 17th time. He has received awards and grants from ASCAP, the American Music Center, the International Horn Society, the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra, and The American Prize in Composition. https://www.leeactor.com

    52 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
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About

Composer Chat is a podcast where we talk a little bit about music, a little bit about life, and a whole lot about whatever we feel like at the moment! Each episode I am joined by a special guest composer and we will chat about their pathway towards success in their musical career!

Information

  • Creator
    Jason K. Nitsch
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Jason K. Nitsch
  • Show Website
    Composer Chats

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