Considered “highly imaginative…with big ideas” (Baltimore Sun) and “stirring and uplifting” (Miami Herald), award-winning composer Jake Runestad (b. 1986) has received commissions and performances from leading ensembles and organizations such as Washington National Opera, the Netherlands Radio Choir, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Seraphic Fire, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Rockford Symphony [...]
Peter DiMuro has woven a career as a choreographer, director, teacher, facilitator and arts practitioner/engager, touring and teaching internationally from Honk Kong to Pigeon Forge, TN. His Peter DiMuro Performance Associates and his fifteen-year collaboration, including 5 years as Artistic Director, with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange laid the foundation for his current creative umbrella, Public [...]
Rusty Banks is a composer/guitarist born in Jasper, Alabama and living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His compositions have been performed in China, Taiwan, France, Italy, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, and throughout the United States. Besides writing concert music for ballet, orchestra, wind ensemble, and other acoustic ensembles, Rusty designs pieces that use traditional performers, user-end electronics, and [...]
The music of Michael Torke has been called "some of the most optimistic, joyful and thoroughly uplifting music to appear in recent years" (Gramophone). Hailed as a "vitally inventive composer" (Financial Times) and "a master orchestrator whose shimmering timbral palette makes him the Ravel of his generation" (New York Times), Michael Torke has created a [...]
Two questions are answered today, and this time by the composers who have shared their insights on Composer on Fire episodes before. The questions: What do I do if the people who commissioned the music don't like it? I haven't commissioned commissioned anything because it will cost a lot of money and I'm not sure [...]
Gregory Spears writes music for modern and period instruments that blends aspects of romanticism, minimalism, and early music. His work has been called “astonishingly beautiful” (New York Times), “coolly entrancing” (The New Yorker), and “some of the most beautifully unsettling music to appear in recent memory.” (The Boston Globe) Much of his work involves period [...]
Jason Eckardt played guitar in jazz and metal bands until, upon first hearing the music of Webern, he immediately devoted himself to composition. Since then, his music has been influenced by his interests in perceptual complexity, the physicality of performance, political activism, and self-organizing processes in the natural world. He has been recognized through commissions, [...]
In this Q&A Garrett answers the following questions: Why do I make such a big deal about routines? I am struggling to start and work on a piece I know I need to write. Any suggestions? If got anything out of this episode please comment below! If you have any more questions don't hesitate to [...]
Dr. Valerie Young is an internationally-known speaker, a leading expert on the impostor syndrome, and author of award-winning book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It (Crown Business, a division of Random House) now available in five languages. A former [...]
I sat down recently with three of best composers I've ever had the privilege of knowing: Timothy Tharaldson, Kurt Knecht, and David von Kampen. All four of us are MusicSpoke composers, which is an innovative new distribution platform for self-published composers that Kurt Knecht and his wife have recently launched. Our conversation was very long [...]
