Derek Bermel
Encyclopedia
Derek Bermel is an American composer
, clarinetist and conductor
whose music blends various facets of world music
, funk
and jazz
with largely classical performing forces and musical vocabulary. He is the recipient of various awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship
and the prestigious Rome Prize
awarded to American artists for a year-long residency in Rome, Italy (Note: This award is given by the American Academy in Rome
and has nothing to do with the Prix de Rome
awarded by the Paris Conservatoire to its student composers.).
and later studied at the University of Michigan
, Ann Arbor with William Bolcom
and William Albright
. He also studied with Louis Andriessen
in Amsterdam
and Henri Dutilleux
at Tanglewood
. Later, his interest in a wide range of musical cultures sent him to Jerusalem to study ethnomusicology
with André Hajdu, Bulgaria to investigate Thracian folk style with Nikola Iliev, Brazil to learn caxixi
with Julio Góes, and to Ghana to study Lobi xylophone with Ngmen Baaru..
Bermel's output includes pieces for a variety of performing forces, including solo vocal songs, pieces for large and small chamber ensembles, and fourteen orchestral works . Though the ensembles he writes for are largely classical, his voice as a composer has been heavily influenced by both his travels and his education in Western art and popular music. His orchestral work A shout, a whisper, and a trace is a good example of this interplay, as it draws on Bermel's knowledge of the Thracian folk style and the work of fellow ethnomusicologist and classical composer Béla Bartók
. Moreover, the piece engages directly with the experience of living in an unfamiliar culture, drawing on Bartók's letters home from New York during the last five years of his life.. He first came into the national spotlight with works like Natural Selection, a series of animal portraits for baritone and ensemble, and Voices, a concerto for clarinet and orchestra which he wrote for himself to perform. The piece was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra
under the baton of the composer/conductor Tan Dun
and has since been performed by many other ensembles and conductors, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic
under the baton of composer/conductor John Adams
. Other important works include his "Migration Series," a piece for jazz band and orchestra that draws on impressions of Jacob Lawrence's set of 60 paintings by the same name depicting the mass movement of African-Americans from the South to the North at the beginning of the 20th century, and "Soul Garden," a viola solo accompanied by string quintet that utilizes quarter-tones and slides to emulate the vocal effects of a gospel singer.. "Soul Garden" in particular reflects what Richard Scheinen, jazz writer for the San Jose Mercury News, has called Bermel's preoccupation with "the human voice--or more generally, language and the yearning the communicate.". This artistic concern is equally evident in lighter pieces such as "Language Instruction," a humorous work for clarinet, viola, cello, and piano in which the clarinet plays the role of the voice on a language tape and the other three instruments students with various degrees of aptitude for the task at hand..
Bermel is also an accomplished clarinetist and plays both classical repertoire and rock and funk, performing with groups such as his own TONK. He also sings and plays keyboards and caxixi in the rock band Peace by Piece.. He has premiered and performed numerous pieces with large orchestras, including his own concerto Voices and John Adams
Gnarly Buttons with the composer at the podium..
Besides his work as a composer and performer, Bermel is active as a teacher. He founded and served as director of the New York Youth Symphony's Making Score workshop for young composers. The workshop meets twice a month at the ASCAP
to study orchestration and composition. The group and has heard from guest lecturers such as Meredith Monk
, Steve Reich
, and John Corigliano
and had pieces read by ensembles such as the American Composers Orchestra
.. More recently, he has mentored both young composers and conductors at Carnegie Hall through the Weill Music Institute.. Bermel also conducts masterclasses at universities and music festivals such as the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Yale University, Peabody School of Music, Bowdoin, Tanglewood, and Aspen..
Bermel's music is published by Peer Music Classical in the United States
and is distributed in Europe
, Australia
and New Zealand
by Faber Music
..
Bermel began a three-year residency with the American Composers Orchestra
in Fall of 2006 and currently serves on the ACO board.. In 2009 Bermel began his three year tenure as composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
as well as his position as artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he currently lives and works..
Small chamber ensemble:
With a solo instrument or voice:
With ensemble:
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, clarinetist and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
whose music blends various facets of world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
with largely classical performing forces and musical vocabulary. He is the recipient of various awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
and the prestigious Rome Prize
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
awarded to American artists for a year-long residency in Rome, Italy (Note: This award is given by the American Academy in Rome
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
and has nothing to do with the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
awarded by the Paris Conservatoire to its student composers.).
Life
Bermel earned his B.A. at Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and later studied at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, Ann Arbor with William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
and William Albright
William Albright (musician)
William Albright was an American composer, pianist and organist.Albright was born in Gary, Indiana, and began learning the piano at the age of five, and attended the Juilliard Preparatory Department , the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan , where he studied composition with...
. He also studied with Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...
at Tanglewood
Tanglewood
Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...
. Later, his interest in a wide range of musical cultures sent him to Jerusalem to study ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
with André Hajdu, Bulgaria to investigate Thracian folk style with Nikola Iliev, Brazil to learn caxixi
Caxixi
A caxixi is a percussion instrument consisting of a closed basket with a flat-bottom filled with seeds or other small particles. The caxixi is an indirectly struck idiophone. Like the maraca, it is sounded by shaking. It is found across Africa and South America, but mainly in Brazil...
with Julio Góes, and to Ghana to study Lobi xylophone with Ngmen Baaru..
Bermel's output includes pieces for a variety of performing forces, including solo vocal songs, pieces for large and small chamber ensembles, and fourteen orchestral works . Though the ensembles he writes for are largely classical, his voice as a composer has been heavily influenced by both his travels and his education in Western art and popular music. His orchestral work A shout, a whisper, and a trace is a good example of this interplay, as it draws on Bermel's knowledge of the Thracian folk style and the work of fellow ethnomusicologist and classical composer Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
. Moreover, the piece engages directly with the experience of living in an unfamiliar culture, drawing on Bartók's letters home from New York during the last five years of his life.. He first came into the national spotlight with works like Natural Selection, a series of animal portraits for baritone and ensemble, and Voices, a concerto for clarinet and orchestra which he wrote for himself to perform. The piece was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra
American Composers Orchestra
The American Composers Orchestra is an American orchestra based in New York City. It is the only orchestra in the world dedicated solely to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers...
under the baton of the composer/conductor Tan Dun
Tan Dun
Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...
and has since been performed by many other ensembles and conductors, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...
under the baton of composer/conductor John Adams
John Coolidge Adams
John Coolidge Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. His best-known works include Short Ride in a Fast Machine , On the Transmigration of Souls , a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks , and Shaker...
. Other important works include his "Migration Series," a piece for jazz band and orchestra that draws on impressions of Jacob Lawrence's set of 60 paintings by the same name depicting the mass movement of African-Americans from the South to the North at the beginning of the 20th century, and "Soul Garden," a viola solo accompanied by string quintet that utilizes quarter-tones and slides to emulate the vocal effects of a gospel singer.. "Soul Garden" in particular reflects what Richard Scheinen, jazz writer for the San Jose Mercury News, has called Bermel's preoccupation with "the human voice--or more generally, language and the yearning the communicate.". This artistic concern is equally evident in lighter pieces such as "Language Instruction," a humorous work for clarinet, viola, cello, and piano in which the clarinet plays the role of the voice on a language tape and the other three instruments students with various degrees of aptitude for the task at hand..
Bermel is also an accomplished clarinetist and plays both classical repertoire and rock and funk, performing with groups such as his own TONK. He also sings and plays keyboards and caxixi in the rock band Peace by Piece.. He has premiered and performed numerous pieces with large orchestras, including his own concerto Voices and John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
Gnarly Buttons with the composer at the podium..
Besides his work as a composer and performer, Bermel is active as a teacher. He founded and served as director of the New York Youth Symphony's Making Score workshop for young composers. The workshop meets twice a month at the ASCAP
American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization that protects its members' musical copyrights by monitoring public performances of their music, whether via a broadcast or live performance, and compensating them...
to study orchestration and composition. The group and has heard from guest lecturers such as Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...
, Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, and John Corigliano
John Corigliano
John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...
and had pieces read by ensembles such as the American Composers Orchestra
American Composers Orchestra
The American Composers Orchestra is an American orchestra based in New York City. It is the only orchestra in the world dedicated solely to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers...
.. More recently, he has mentored both young composers and conductors at Carnegie Hall through the Weill Music Institute.. Bermel also conducts masterclasses at universities and music festivals such as the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Yale University, Peabody School of Music, Bowdoin, Tanglewood, and Aspen..
Bermel's music is published by Peer Music Classical in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and is distributed in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
by Faber Music
Faber Music
Faber Music is a British sheet music publisher best known for contemporary classical music. It also publishes music tutor books, and in 2005 acquired popular music publisher International Music Publications....
..
Bermel began a three-year residency with the American Composers Orchestra
American Composers Orchestra
The American Composers Orchestra is an American orchestra based in New York City. It is the only orchestra in the world dedicated solely to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers...
in Fall of 2006 and currently serves on the ACO board.. In 2009 Bermel began his three year tenure as composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is a 40-member American chamber orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, considered by music critic Jim Svejda as "America's finest chamber orchestra".-History:...
as well as his position as artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he currently lives and works..
Chamber Works
Large chamber ensemble:- Canzonas Americanas (2010)
- Swing Song (2009)
- In Tangle (2005)
- Three Rivers (2001)
- Continental Divide (1996)
- Hot Zone (1995)
Small chamber ensemble:
- Passing Through (2007), string quartet
- Twin Trio (2005), flute, clarinet, and piano
- Tied Shifts (2004), flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion
- Language Instruction (2003), clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
- Catcalls (2003), brass quintet
- Soul Garden (2000), viola + 2 violins, viola, 2 cellos
- Coming Together (1999), clarinet and cello
- God's Trombones (1998), 3 trombones and percussion
- Oct Up (1995), double string quartet
- Wanderings (1994), flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon
- SchiZm (1994), clarinet/oboe and piano
- String Quartet (1992), string quartet
- Mulatash Stomp (1991), violin, clarinet, and piano
- Sonata Humana (1991), clarinet and piano
Orchestral Works
- A Shout, A Whisper, and a Trace (2009)
- Elixir (2006)
- Migration Series (2006)
- Slides (2003)
- Tag Rag (2003)
- The Ends (2002)
- Thracian Echoes (2002)
- Dust Dances (1994)
With a solo instrument or voice:
- Mar de Setembro (2011), mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra
- Ritornello (2011), electric guitar concerto
- The Good Life (2008), soprano, baritone, choir, and orchestra
- Turning Variations (2006), piano concerto
- The Sting (2001-2) - (narr, orch)
- Voices (1997), clarinet concerto
Songs
Solo voice:- Nature Calls (1999), medium voice and piano
- Cabaret Songs(1998), soprano and piano
- See How She Moves (1997), solo medium voice
- Three Songs on Poems by Wendy S. Walters (1993), medium voice and piano
With ensemble:
- Cabaret Songs (2007), soprano, clarinet, percussion, double bass, dobro, and guitar
- Natural Selection (2000), low voice and ensemble
- At the End of the World (2000), high voice and orchestra
- Old Songs for a New Man (1997), baritone soloist and trumpet, trombone, piano, percussion, violin, double bass
Solo Instrument
- Fetch (2004), piano
- Funk Studies (2004), piano
- Kontraphunktus (2004), piano
- Thracian Sketches (2003), clarinet
- Meditation (1997), piano
- Turning (1995), piano
- Two Songs from Nandom (1993), organ
- Theme and Absurdities (1993), clarinet
- Dodecaphunk (1992), piano
- Three Funk Studies (1991), piano