Biography

DAVID  FELDER has long been recognized as a leader in his generation of American composers.  His works  have been featured at many of the leading international festivals for new music including Holland, Huddersfield, Darmstadt, Ars Electronica, Brussels, ISCM, North American New Music, Geneva, Ravinia, Aspen, Music Factory, Bourges, Vienna Modern, IRCAM Agora, and many others,  and earns continuing recognition through performance and commissioning programs by such organizations as the New York New Music Ensemble, BBC Orchestra, Arditti Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, American Brass Quintet, Ensemble InterContemporain and many others.  Felder’s work  has been broadly characterized by its highly energetic profile, through its frequent employment of technological extension and elaboration of musical materials (including his “Crossfire” video series), and its lyrical qualities.

Felder has received numerous grants and commissions including many awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York State Council Commissions, a New York  Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Guggenheim, Koussevitzky, and two Fromm Foundation Fellowships, two  awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer “New Residencies”  (1993-1996) with the Buffalo Philhramonic, two commissions from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, and many  more. Recently completed commissions include “In Between”, for solo electronic percussion, and chamber orchestra for June, 2000, premiere by percussionist Daniel Druckman; “Inner Sky”. (1999) for flutist (doubling picc., alto and bass) and chamber string orchestra with percussion and piano plus computer cues; “Shredder”, and “Incendio”, two works for virtuoso brass ensemble, in 2001;  a sextet, “partial [dist]res[s]toration” for the New York New Music Ensemble (commissioned by the Fromm Foundation, and premiered first in June, 2002, with electronics added in 2003-4), a work for flute plus ensemble, “Dionysiacs” commissioned by the Brannen-Cooper Fund and “whooosh” for Cheryl Gobbetti Hoffman (premiere in January, 2005, by the Orchestra of French Flutes in Paris), and a Cary Trust commission for the New York Virtuoso Singers, “Memento mori”  (March, 2004 premiere). New projects for  2005-6 will include a second quartet for the Arditti Quartet, commissioned by the Siemens Foundation, a commission for bass voice and electronics  for  Nicholas Isherwood, co-commissioned by GRAME in Lyon, France, and four European Festivals, and a work on texts by poet Robert Creeley.

Currently, Felder is Professor of Composition  at SUNY Buffalo, where he has held the Birge-Cary  Chair in Composition since 1992,  and has been Artistic Director of  the “June in Buffalo” Festival from 1985 to the present. From 1992 to 1996 he was Meet the Composer "New Residencies", Composer-in-Residence (one of six such residencies in the US) to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and WBFO-FM. In 1996, he formed the professional chamber orchestra, the Slee Sinfonietta, and has been Artistic Director since that time. He has taught previously at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the University of California, San Diego, and California State University, Long Beach, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, in 1983.  His works are published by Theodore Presser,  and a first full CD of his works  was released to international acclaim (including “disc of the year” in chamber music from boththe American Record Guide, and BBC Music Magazine) on the Bridge label (Bridge #0049) during 1996. A second disc containing orchestral work was released by Mode Records  (Mode #89; “Editor’s Best of the Year” selection, Fanfare Magazine, 2002) in Spring, 2000,  and EMF #033 was released in July, 2001, containing premiere recordings of orchestral works  by Morton Feldman and David Felder  (two works for each composer) to very enthusaistic critical review. A cd-dvd-audio, 5.1 surround project featuring works with electronics is in preparation and will be released in  late Fall, 2005.

photos by Irene Haupt
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