Laura Schwendinger - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Laura Elise Schwendinger (born January 26, 1962 in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

D.F. Mexico) was the first composer to win the prestigious American Academy in Berlin

American Academy in Berlin

The American Academy in Berlin is a research and cultural institution in Berlin whose stated mission is to foster a greater understanding and dialogue between the people of the United States and the people of Germany.The American Academy was founded in September 1994 by a group of prominent...

, Berlin Prize

Berlin Prize

The Berlin Prize is a residential fellowship at the Hans Arnhold Center, awarded by the American Academy in Berlin.- Fellows of the American Academy in Berlin :-References:*http://www.americanacademy.de/home/about-us/hans-arnhold-center/...

Biography

Ms. Schwendinger is an Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

, where she is also the Artistic Director of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley, where she studied with Andrew Imbrie

Andrew Imbrie

Andrew Welsh Imbrie was an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Imbrie was born in New York on April 6, 1921, and began his musical training as a pianist when he was 4. In 1937, he went to Paris to study briefly with Nadia Boulanger...

and Olly Wilson

Olly Wilson

Olly Woodrow Wilson, Jr. is a prominent American composer of contemporary classical music, pianist, double bassist, and musicologist. He is one of the preeminent living composers of African American descent.-Life:...

. Schwendinger has been invited to present her music to seminars at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

, the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, the University of California at Berkeley, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

San Francisco Conservatory of Music, formerly the California Conservatory of Music, founded in 1917, is a music school, with an enrollment of about 400 students. It was launched by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead in the remodeled home of Lillian's parents on Sacramento Street. It was called the...

, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland's foremost music education institution.

Before her position in Madison Schwendinger taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago

University of Illinois at Chicago

The University of Illinois at Chicago, or UIC, is a state-funded public research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, near the Chicago Loop...

, the Music Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz

University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...

, Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Preparatory Division, where she started a program for young composers in 1985, which continues to this day.

Career

While in high school, she toured with the Berkeley High School Concert Chorale, which toured Europe in 1978-1979.
Her music has been performed by some of the leading artists of our day and at many of the world’s most prestigious venues. Her setting of in Just- spring was performed on tour by Dawn Upshaw

Dawn Upshaw

Dawn Upshaw is an American soprano described as "one of the most consequential performers of our time" by the Los Angeles Times. The recipient of several Grammy Awards and Edison Prize-winning discs, Upshaw is at home both in opera and art song, and in repertoire from Baroque to contemporary...

and Gilbert Kalish

Gilbert Kalish

Gilbert Kalish is an American pianist.He was born in New York and studied with Leonard Shure, Julius Hereford and Isabelle Vengerova. He was a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a pioneering new music group that flourished during the 1960s and '70s...

from 1997-2002 at venues including Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

, Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

-London, the Theatre Chatelet in Paris, the National Arts Center in Canada and at the 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...

and Ojai Music Festival

Ojai Music Festival

The Ojai Music Festival is an annual classical music festival in the United States. Held in Ojai, California for four days every June, the festival presents music, symposia, and educational programs emphasizing adventurous, eclectic, and challenging music, principally by contemporary composers...

s. It is available on a Naxos

Naxos Records

Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...

TDK/DVD, Voices of Our Time, with Ms. Upshaw and Mr. Kalish and was recorded at The Theatre Chatalet.

Other high profile performances of her music include a “Pocket Concerto” commission from Miller Theatre

Miller Theatre

Miller Theatre at Columbia University is located on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University. It is a performing arts producer dedicated to developing and presenting new music....

in New York, Chiaroscuro Azzurro, premiered by violinist Jennifer Koh and the International Contemporary Ensemble

International Contemporary Ensemble

The International Contemporary Ensemble is a contemporary classical music ensemble of thirty chamber musicians, including strings, woodwinds, piano, percussion, voice and composers, which enables great flexibility of programming...

. Other performances of note include her cello concerto Esprimere, written for and premiered by Matt Haimovitz

Matt Haimovitz

Matt Haimovitz is an Israeli-born cellist now based in the United States and Canada. He mainly plays a cello made by Matteo Gofriller in 1710.-Family, musical education and early career:...

and the University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Symphony Orchestra.

A Harvard Musical Association

Harvard Musical Association

The Harvard Musical Association is a private charitable organization founded by Harvard University graduates in 1837 for the purposes of advancing musical culture and literacy, both at the University and in the city of Boston. Though initially a spin-off of the Pierian Sodality, the Association...

Commission, String Quartet, was premiered by the Arditti Quartet

Arditti Quartet

The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974. The quartet is associated particularly with contemporary music.-Early history:The quartet was founded in 1974 by violinist Irvine Arditti together with John Senter, Levine Andrade and Lenox Mackenzie...

, a Koussevitzky Foundation commission. Celestial City, which featured the dynamic young recording artist Janine Jansen

Janine Jansen

Janine Jansen is a violinist. She began to study the violin at age 6. Her father and both her brothers are also musicians. Her mother is a classical singer and is a sister of the bass Peter Kooy...

with Spectrum Concerts Berlin at the Berlin Philharmoniker Kammermusiksaal, Fable performed by Collage New Music at Harvard University

Harvard University

, and a Fromm Foundation Commission, Nonet for the Chicago Chamber Musicians, which was premiered on "Live from WFMT

WFMT

WFMT is an FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk and jazz). The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two Public Broadcasting Service ...

" radio in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. The Theater Chamber Players commissioned two works by Schwendinger, Songs of Heaven and Earth, and Magic Carpet Music, which were both premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...

in Washington D.C.

Reviews

Reviews of her music have appeared in the nation's leading newspapers. Allan Kozinn
of the New York Times, wrote of her Chiaroscurro Azzurro as played by Jennifer Koh

Jennifer Koh

Jennifer Koh is an American violinist, born to Korean parents in Glen Ellyn, IL.Jennifer Koh earned a B.A. in English Literature from Oberlin College, as well as a Performance Diploma from the attached Oberlin Conservatory. She is also a graduate of the Curtis Institute and was silver medalist in...

Ms. Schwendinger’s work also lives in (at least) two worlds. The violin writing, played with equal measures of energy and velvety richness by Jennifer Koh, is sometimes assertive and rhythmically sharp-edged, but those moments virtually always resolve into a sweetly singing line. The grittier orchestral writing offsets that sweetness without overwhelming it. This is a work that seems likely to blossom with repeated listening.

Richard Buell of the Boston Globe wrote in his review of her chamber work Fable,

This was shrewd composing, the genuine article. Onto the season's best list it goes" and of her String Quartet "an unmistakable lyric intensity...a fine piece...worthy of the Arditti's attention,

and later of her Magic Carpet Music as played by Collage New Music:

Schwendinger's Magic Carpet Music like the composer's other music, rejoices in edge and has a force that has its way...Here is a composer with distinct voice.

Mark Kanny of the Pittsburgh Tribune wrote,

The absence of any visual entertainment for Schwendinger's Buenos Aires focused attention on the musical excellence of her hard-driving quartet for flute, bass clarinet, violin and cello. She creates fresh and compelling lines that are brought together to a powerful climax.

Awards

Beyond those already mentioned, Schwendinger has received honors from the Guggenheim Foundation

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...

, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard is an educational institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the semiautonomous components of Harvard University. It is heir to the name and buildings of Radcliffe College, but unlike that historical institution, its focus is directed...

, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Rockefeller Foundation

Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...

, Yaddo Corporation, the MacDowell Colony

MacDowell Colony

The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...

, the Liguria Conference Center, and was the first prize winner of the 1995 ALEA III International Composition Competition.

Selected works

Chiaroscuro Azzurro, a “Pocket concerto" commission from Miller Theater for violin and chamber orchestra (20 players). For Jennifer Koh, Premiere March 2008, Miller Theater, New York City (for March 2008)
High Wire Act (2005) for flute, strings and piano. Written for and commissioned by Christina Jennings and Bright Music. Premiere November 15, 2005
Esprimere Concerto for cello and orchestra (2005) Written for Matt Haimovitz and the UW Symphony Orchestra. Premiere March 28, 2007
Celestial City (2002) For Spectrum Concerts of Berlin. Koussevitzky Foundation Commission. Premiere was 1/22/03: Berlin Philharmonic recital Hall. (18:01) for clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano
String Quartet in three movements (2001) A Harvard Musical Association. Commission, The Arditti String Quartet, 1/24/03. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. (17:36
Magic Carpet Music (1999) for flute, clarinet (bass), violin and Cello. (13:00) Written for The Theater Chamber Players. Premiere was on December 4, 1999 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Chansons Innocentes: Three song set includes In Just Spring-, Hist whist, little ghost things (2000) and Tumbling-hair for voice and piano. Hildegard Publishing, available from Theodore Presser.
from Chansons Innocente- In Just Spring- (1988) for soprano and piano. Taken on tour (1997–2002) by Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish, venues include Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall- London, Veteran's Wadsworth- Los Angeles, Theatre du Chatelet- Paris, Herbst Theater- San Francisco and The Tanglewod Music Festival. Also available on Voices of Our Time a recital video of Dawn Upshaw at The Theatre du Chatelet in Paris
Fable , (1994), for flute (alto, piccolo), clarinet (bass), violin, cello, piano and percussion (15:00).* Performances include Aspen Music Festival, San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble, June in Buffalo and Bowdoin Festival.
Rapture (2003) for cello and piano. (8:30) Adapted for Jens Peter Maintz, principal cellist of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Premiere 5/24/03
Sonata for solo violin (1992) in three movements (13:00). Written for and premiered by Victor Schultz at the Ives Center for American Music.
Songs of Heaven and Earth (1998)for mezzo-soprano, flute (picc.,alto), clarinet (bass), violin, cello, piano, percussion, and harp.(28:00) Written and premiered by The Theater Chamber Players, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Discography