Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition

The Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition is a position awarded annually to a major figure in music composition today. The Visiting Professors come to the Ithaca College campus during the course of the academic year to lecture on their music and issues relevant to contemporary composition. In addition, during their time on campus, they hold private lessons with the School of Music's composition majors. Over the year of their professorship, their music is performed and examined by Ithaca College School of Music faculty and students.

The Karel Husa Visiting Professor of Composition for 2012-13 is David Rakowski, who will give a talk on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at 8:15 in the Iger Lecture Hall (JJWCM 2105).  In addition, the Ithaca College Contemporary Ensemble will be featuring his chamber and solo works on November 14, 2012 at 8:15 and on April 15, 2013 in the Hockett Family Recital Hall. 

David Rakowski was born and raised in St. Albans, Vermont, where he played trombone in high school and community bands. He received his musical training at New England Conservatory, Princeton, and Tanglewood, where he studied with Robert Ceely, John Heiss, Milton Babbitt, Paul Lansky, Peter Westergaard, and Luciano Berio.

Rakowski's most widely-traveled music is his collection of one hundred highly varied and high-energy piano etudes; these pieces approach the idea of etude from many different angles, be they technical, conceptual, compositional, or stylistic. He is now at work on a set of a hundred piano preludes, of which the first fifteen are written. He has also written three and three-fourths symphonies, seven concertos, three large wind ensemble pieces, a sizable collection of chamber and vocal music, as well as incidental music and music for children.

 

Rakowski's awards include the Rome Prize, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2006 Barlow Prize, and the 2004-6 Elise L. Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tanglewood Music Center, BMI, Columbia University, the Orleans International Piano Competition (Chevillion-Bonnaud composition prize), the International Horn Society, and various artist colonies. He has been commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the U.S. Marine Band, Sequitur, Network for New Music, Koussevitzky Music Foundation (with Ensemble 21 in 1996 and with Boston Modern Orchestra Project in 2006), Collage New Music, the Kaufman Center/Merkin Hall, Boston Musica Viva, the Fromm Foundation (twice), Dinosaur Annex, the Crosstown Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, the Riverside Symphony, Parnassus, The Composers Ensemble, Alea II, Alea III, Triple Helix, and others. In 1999 his Persistent Memory, commissioned by Orpheus, was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and in 2002 his Ten of a Kind, commissioned by "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band, was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has been composer-in-residence at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Guest Composer at the Wellesley Composers Conference, and a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His music is published by C.F. Peters, is recorded on New World/CRI, BMOP/Sound, Innova, Americus, Albany, Capstone, and Bridge, and has been performed worldwide.

 

After his first academic appointment, a one-year position at Stanford University, he taught at Columbia University for six years before joining the faculty of Brandeis University, where he is now the Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Composition. While at Brandeis, he has also taken concurrent part-time appointments teaching at Harvard University (twice) and New England Conservatory (also twice). He lives in the Boston area and in Maine with his wife Beth Wiemann and two cats.

Adapted from the composer’s website.

PAST VISITING PROFESSORS:

2011 - 2012 Melinda Wagner
2010 - 2011 Steven Mackey
2009 - 2010 Sebastian Currier
2008 - 2009 William Bolcom, Sydney Hodkinson
2007 - 2008 Karel Husa, Joan Tower, George Tsontakis
2006 - 2007 Jennifer Higdon  
2005 - 2006 Michael Colgrass
2004 - 2005 Stephen Hartke
2003 - 2004 Robert Beaser
2002 - 2003 Chen Yi
2001 - 2002 Karel Husa
2000 - 2001 Michael Daugherty
1999 - 2000 John Harbison
1998 - 1999 Libby Larsen
1997 - 1998 Tania León
1996 - 1997 Christopher Rouse
1995 - 1996 George Crumb
1994 - 1995 Samuel Adler
1993 - 1994 Jacob Druckman
1992 - 1993 Shulamit Ran
1991 - 1992 Karel Husa
1990 - 1991 William Bolcom
1989 - 1990 Joan Tower
1988 - 1989 John Corigliano
1987 - 1988 Joseph Schwantner