Michael Lowenstern
Encyclopedia
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...
neighborhood, is an American bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
ist and composer specializing in new music
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
.
Lowenstern holds a B.M. and Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music
Eastman School of Music
The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...
, an Artist's Certificate from the Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam, and an M.M. and D.M.A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1989, Lowenstern received a Fulbright grant
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...
to study 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...
with bass clarinet virtuoso Harry Sparnaay
Harry Sparnaay
Harry Sparnaay is a noted Dutch bass clarinetist, composer, and teacher. He is the most well-known player of new music for the bass clarinet and has won the following: First Prize Gaudeamus Contest , Swedish Record Prize , Bulgarian Composers Union Award , Inaugural Sounds Australian Award ,...
. In addition to Sparnaay, Lowenstern's clarinet and bass clarinet teachers have included Charles Neidich
Charles Neidich
Charles Neidich is an American classical clarinetist, composer, and conductor.-Early career:A native New Yorker of Russian and Greek descent, Charles Neidich began his clarinet studies with his father, Irving Neidich, at the age of eight, and continued them with the renowned teacher Leon Russianoff...
, Richard MacDowell, and John Bruce Yeh
John Bruce Yeh
John Bruce Yeh is the acting principal clarinetist and Eb clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Yeh joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1977. He started as solo bass clarinetist and two years later was appointed assistant principal and Eb clarinetist.-External links:*...
, and he has also studied composition with Daniel Weymouth.
Lowenstern is based in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He has performed with ensembles representing a wide range of musical genres, including The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is an American organization dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music. Its website states that it is "the nation’s premier repertory company for chamber music."...
, Steve Reich and Musicians
Steve Reich and Musicians
Steve Reich and Musicians, sometimes credited as the Steve Reich Ensemble, is a musical ensemble founded and led by the American composer Steve Reich to perform his compositions. This ensemble has premiered many of Reich's works and has performed his works more than any other...
, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a Grammy Award-winning classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. It is known for its collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, not a conductor, interpret the score....
, The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics are a Grammy Award-winning American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing origins...
, Robin Cox Ensemble, John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
, and Billband. In 1991 he won the first prize at the International Gaudeamus Competition in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Lowenstern has created numerous compositions for bass clarinet, both solo and with electronics. His works explore the possibilities of large ensembles of bass clarinets (done by multi-tracking), as well as juxtaposing the instrument with drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
-style beats more common to electronic dance music than to contemporary classical music. He has also composed music for film, dance, and the Internet. Since October 2006, a segment of his playing with Billband has been used as the theme for the National Public Radio segment "Science Out of the Box," which airs on the Weekend All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
program.
Lowenstern has served on the faculties of New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
, and is now on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
, teaching bass clarinet in their Contemporary Performance Program. He served as bass clarinetist of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is a symphony orchestra located in the state of New Jersey, United States. Philip James founded the orchestra in 1922. The orchestra is headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. Neeme Järvi, the NJSO's music director from 2005 to 2009, is currently the orchestra's...
from 2000 until his retirement from orchestral playing in 2005. He appears on over forty CDs, including five solo recordings. The album Ten Children garnered Lowenstern a "Parenting Pick" award in Parenting magazine's music listing for 2004.
In 2009, Lowenstern took part in the In C Remixed project which featured remixes of the seminal Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
work "In C
In C
In C is a semi-aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of people, although he suggests "a group of about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work"...
" by 16 artists including Meat Beat Manifesto
Meat Beat Manifesto
Meat Beat Manifesto, often shortened to Meat Beat or MBM, is an electronic music group originally consisting of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens formed in 1987 in Swindon, UK...
's Jack Dangers
Jack Dangers
Jack Dangers is an electronic musician, DJ, producer, and remixer best known for his work as the primary member of Meat Beat Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco.-Career:...
, DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
, David Lang
David Lang
David Lang may refer to:*David Marshall Lang , historian*David Lang , American composer*David Lang , American football running back...
, Radiolab's Jad Abumrad
Jad Abumrad
Jad Abumrad is a Lebanese-American radio host and producer. He has reported and produced documentaries for a number of local and National Public Radio programs, including On the Media, PRI's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Democracy Now!, and WNYC's "24...
and many others.