Composition & Theory Faculty

 

David Ludwig - Composer-in-Residence (YAS)

David Ludwig's music has been performed internationally by leading musicians of today in some of the world's most prestigious locations.  His music has been called “entrancing,” and that it “promises to speak for the sorrows of this generation,” (Philadelphia Inquirer).  It has further gained recognition for its “expressive directness” (The New York Times) and has been noted for “a yearning, poetic quality” (Baltimore Sun).  His works have been performed in such venues in the United States as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Library of Congress, and have been heard on PBS and NPR's Weekend Edition.

Ludwig has received commissions from many prominent artists and ensembles. The Grammy Award-winning “eighth blackbird” ensemble premiered his new work Haiku Catharsis at the Kimmel Center in 2004. Also in 2004, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra premiered Ludwig's Concerto for Cello and Orchestra for their 70th Anniversary concert.  In 2005, Ludwig continued his residency with the VSO after writing a new work for violinist Jaime Laredo that the composer conducted on a tour of a dozen concert halls.  His Concertino was one of the top ten most frequently performed orchestra works by a living composer that year according to the American Symphony Orchestra League.

Other commissions have been received from important musicians including pianist Jonathan Biss, flutist Jeffrey Khaner, violinist Soovin Kim, violist Michael Tree, and guitarist Jason Vieaux.  The 2007-2008 Season will feature commissions for the Minnesota Orchestra, Concert Artists Guild, The Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, the University of Michigan Wind Ensemble, and the Detroit Chamber Winds ensemble as well as a double concerto for violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson.

Recipient of the First Music Award, an Independence Foundation Fellowship, and a Theodore Presser Foundation Career Grant, Ludwig has been twice nominated for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Stoeger Award.  He has received awards from the American Composers Forum, American Music Center, and has a three-year residency funded by the prestigious Meet The Composer “Music Alive!” program.
  
Ludwig was the Young Composer in residence at the Marlboro Music School for three consecutive years.  In addition to Marlboro, he has been in residence at the Yaddo and MacDowell artist colonies.  He is a resident artist at the Isabella Gardner Museum, is the resident composer and permanent New Music Advisor of the Vermont Symphony, and is the director of the Contemporary Music Program at The New York Summer Music Festival.

Born in Bucks County, P.A., Ludwig received a B.M. from the Oberlin Conservatory with Richard Hoffmann and his M.M. from MSM.  He continued post-graduate work at The Curtis Institute with Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon and Ned Rorem, and at the Juilliard School with John Corigliano.  He is the George Crumb Fellow in the University of Pennsylvania PhD program.  Ludwig joined the faculty of Curtis in 2002 where he serves as the department coordinator and the artistic director of the 20/21 New Music Ensemble.  His website is at www.davidludwigmusiccom.

 

Robert Paterson - composition & theory (YAS)

Cited by the press as “one of the major contenders in American music,” Robert Paterson’s music continues to be in demand by audiences and musicians alike.

A recipient of the 2011 Composer of The Year Award from the Classical Recording Foundation, Paterson is also the winner of the 2010 Cincinnati Camerata Composition Competition with his setting of Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep (text by Mary Frye). The panel chose this work from his cycle Eternal Reflections for its “expressive choral writing, text painting and imaginatively beautiful textures.” Other awards include a Copland Award, grants from Meet The Composer, the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum and ASCAP, and fellowships to Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Aspen Music Festival and the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Paterson is currently “Music Alive!” composer-in-residence for three years with the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association, sponsored by Meet The Composer and the League of American Orchestras. This residency will culminate in a major commission for a twenty-five minute work for orchestra, chorus and narrator entitled A New Earth, featuring environmentalist Bill McKibben. During 2011-12, he is a fellow with American Opera Projects. This residency features performances of scenes from his opera-in-progress with librettist David Cote. Paterson’s upcoming commissions include works for the Claremont Trio, Duo Scorpio and the American Modern Ensemble.

This past season included a commission from the Vermont Symphony Orchestra for Dark Mountains, conducted in eight performances by Jaime Laredo, and two new choral works for the Chamber Choir of Europe.  Other recent performances include the European premiere and sixteen performances of Dancing Games by the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire (France) and the world premiere of Electric Lines by the Louisville Orchestra. Electric Lines was previously performed during the Minnesota Orchestra Readings and the American Composers Orchestra Whitaker New Music Readings.

Paterson is also founder and Artistic Director of the critically-acclaimed American Modern Ensemble, a twenty-member ensemble that “consistently demonstrates a flair for inventive programming,” and is noted as “a worthwhile organization with a strong fan base and performers of high quality” (New York Times).

Paterson appears on recordings for Mode Records, Centaur Records, Capstone and AMR, and two CDs devoted entirely to his music will be released on American Modern Recordings (AMR) in 2011. Paterson is also active as a professional percussionist and pioneered the development of a six-mallet marimba technique, presenting the world’s first all six-mallet marimba recital at the Eastman School of Music. A CD of his six-mallet compositions will be released in 2012. 

The son of a sculptor and painter, Paterson was born and raised in Buffalo, New York and received degrees from Eastman (BM), Indiana University (MM), and Cornell University (DMA). He resides in New York City with his wife, Victoria, a professional violinist, and their six-year-old son, Dylan. For more information, visit his website.

 

John Drumheller - composition & theory (JSS1)

A native of Bozeman, Montana, John Drumheller received his DMA in composition from the University of Colorado in 1993. He has had further studies in digital synthesis and algorithmic composition at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University as well as synthesis and digital signal processing at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at the University of California at Berkeley. His music has been performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia, including diverse venues such as the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC and the Issues Project Room in New York City.  He has won several awards for his music, including the Eugene Kayden Colorado Arts Award, the Quinto Maganini Award and an Honorable Mention at the ALEA III International Composition Competition for his string quartet Ragged Tree at Olive Ridge, recorded on the CRS label. He is a founding member of the Boulder Laptop Orchestra and is Instructor of Composition and Director of Music Technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

 

 

Ilona Vukovic-Gay - composition & theory (JSS2)

Ilona pursues a career as a composer and a performing musician. In the Tucson Symphony Orchestra she is the Young Composer’s Project Instructor, the Assistant Principal Viola and the violist in the TSO String Quartet. She is also on the Arizona Commission on the Arts roster as the violist in the Southwest String Quartet. She has a Bachelor of Violin Performance from Manhattan School of Music and a Masters of Musical Arts in Viola and Composition from Yale University. She studied the violin with Rafael Bronstein, viola with Walter Trampler and composition with James Drew and Yehudi Wyner. She was awarded a Fulbright Grant for further study in London.

Ilona’s compositions include a series of musical dramatizations of Susan Lowell’s children’s books such as the “Three Little Javelinas.” These compositions feature the TSO string quartet performing as soloists with the orchestra. Every year one of these musical stories is the main composition on the TSO’s week long KinderKonzert series. In addition to the Young Composer’s Project, Ilona is actively involved as a music educator in Tucson. She has created a class of Kinder Komposition for the very young student, been an instructor in Tucson’s “Opening Minds through the Arts” program and taught creative composition classes in Arizona residencies.  She teaches and performs at over thirty schools in the Tucson area each year. Previously she had been on the New College (Sarasota, Florida) faculty teaching music theory and composition. Her other compositions have been performed in the United States and Europe, with a premiere of her composition “Mladost” at London’s Wigmore Hall. 

Ilona has been the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Young Composer’s Project instructor for the past eight years. The class is a living laboratory of music composition that has several hundred alumni.  Many have continued as composition majors at the college level and have been winners and finalists in the Morton Gould ASCAP Foundation awards. The Young Composer’s Project is a unique and nationally recognized program that has been a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts grant for the last four years and was lauded last year by cellist YoYo Ma.

 

Jeanne Nelson - theory (JSS2)

Jeanne Nelson, Theory and Practice Partner, is a piano teacher in Iowa City, Iowa.  A graduate of Augustana College, Ms. Nelson has done post-graduate study at University of Iowa.  She is president of Iowa City piano teachers' organization, adjudicator, church organist, and accompanist for Musical Comedy Troupe.  Her piano students have won many awards for music composition and Ms. Nelson loves teaching music theory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kevin Harbison - recording engineer

Kevin Harbison is the recording engineer for the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Technical Director of Grusin Music Hall.  He is also the owner of Threshold Audio Recording.  He received a BM in Audio Recording Technology from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his teachers included Jack Renner and Thomas Knab of Telarc International and Bruce Egre of Azica Records.  Prior to CU he worked at the Michigan State University School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music and Commercial Recording Studios (Independence, OH).  His clients have included The Cleveland Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival, Summit Brass, Tulsa Opera, The MSU Spartan Marching Band, Boulder Bach Festival and the Boulder and High Plains Youth Symphonies. 

Kevin enjoys teaching and has been a mentor for the “Notes at 9000” Emerging Artist Series.  He teaches courses at CU on the art of recording and of being recorded: “Prepared for the Soundcheck” (MUSC 2081), “Behind the Board” (MUSC 2091) and “Advanced Recording Techniques” (MUSC 4191).  He is the Music Director at First United Methodist Church in Lafayette, CO, and when he’s not recording Kevin can be found playing with antique toy trains in Erie with his wife and two children.