Rodney Sharman is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 composer

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...

 and flutist based in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

. His music has been performed in over 30 countries worldwide. He has won several international and national awards, including First Prize in the 1984 CBC Competition for Young Composers. His chamber opera, Elsewhereless, a collaboration with Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan, OC is a critically acclaimed Armenian-Canadian stage director and film director. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica...

, premiered in 1998 and has been staged 35 times internationally.

Biography

Sharman earned degrees from the University of Victoria School of Music (Victoria, B.C.) and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (Freiburg, Germany). In May 1991, he earned a PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Sharman studied under Murray Adaskin

Murray Adaskin

-External links:*...

, Rudolf Komorous

Rudolf Komorous

Rudolf Komorous is a Canadian composer. His works includue Twenty-Three Poems about Horses , based on the poetry of Li Ho, the opera No no miya which uses elements of Noh theatre and the Li Ch’ing Chao Madrigals .-References:...

, Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough

Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...

, Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...

, David Felder, Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...

, 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...

 and Lucas Foss.

Sharman was guest composer at the Institute of Sonology

Institute of Sonology

The Institute of Sonology is an education and research center for electronic music and computer music based at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in the Netherlands.-Background:...

 (Utrecht, Netherlands) in 1983-84. He taught at Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of British Columbia School of Music, the School for the Contemporary Arts and Faculty of Graduate Liberal Studies, Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...

. Sharman was the Vancouver Symphony’s (VSO) Composer-in-Residence from 1997 to 2000 and its Composer/Music Advisor from 2000 to 2001.

The Canadian Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) elected him President from 1991-95. Canadian League of Composers (CLC) elected Sharman President from 1993-98. He has served on the CLC Council from 1988 to 1999.

In 1990, Sharman was awarded the Kranichsteiner Music Prize at the Darmstadt summer courses in Germany.

Style

Sharman's music is notable for its heavy use of extended techniques and exploration of new timbres. He often writes for uncommon instruments or unusual ensembles. He is also known for his opera transcriptions, cabaret songs, and music for harp.

Selected works

• The Proximity of Mars (1988)
• In Changing Light (1995)
• Elsewhereless (1998)
• Scarlattiana (1999)
• Four Seasons, One Tree (2001)
• The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa" (2005)
• Departures" (2008)

External links

• RodneySharman.com