University of Pennsylvania, Department of Music
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Composition History of Music Theory of Music Anthropology of Music Emeritus Professors

Faculty: Composition

James Primosch

email: primosch@sas.upenn.edu
D.M.A., Columbia University, 1988
Professor of Music

Stoeger Prize, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, 1999. Pew Fellowship of the Arts, 1996. Regional Visiting Artist, American Academy in Rome, 1994. Composer-in-residence, Marlboro Music Festival, 1994. American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, 1993; Charles Ives Scholarship, 1985. National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1991. Guggenheim fellowship, 1986.

Primosch's works have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the New Music Consort, the New York New Music Ensemble, Collage, Speculum Musicae, the 20th-Century Consort, Lucy Shelton, Dawn Upshaw, and Christine Schadeberg. His Icons for clarinet, piano and tape was selected for performance at the 1988 World Music Days in Hong Kong.

He has received commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, Speculum Musicae, the New York Youth Symphony, and the New York Camerata. Recordings of his music have been released on the CRI, New World, and Centaur labels. Also active as a pianist, Primosch was a prizewinner at the 1977 Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in Rotterdam. He appears as pianist on recordings for CRI, New World, Crystal, and the Smithsonian Collection.
link to James Primosch's page at Theodore Presser

 

Jay Reise

email: jreise@sas.upenn.edu
A.M., University of Pennsylvania, 1975
Robert Weiss Professor of Music

Reise is the composer of the opera Rasputin which was commissioned and premiered by the New York City Opera in 1988. He has also written three symphonies (performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra among others) as well as numerous chamber works. In 1997, his choreographic tone-poem "The Selfish Giant" was commissioned and premiered by the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. He has appeared with International Music Festivals at Spoleto USA, Guanajuato/Mexico, Moldova, and the Grand Teton Music Festival. His chamber concerto "Chesapeake Rhythms" has been recorded by CRI.

In 2000, an all Reise program was presented at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. His most recent premiere was "Six Pictures for Piano" performed by Marc-André Hamelin (soundclip below). His current projects are an opera combining the styles of Beijing and western opera, and a book on Carnatic rhythm for Western musicians. Reise's articles have appeared in Opera News, Nineteenth-Century Music, and Perspectives of New Music. Honors include Carmago Foundation, 2002. Guggenheim fellowship, 1979. National Endowment for the Arts 1978, 1984. Rockefeller Foundation, 1982. U.S./Japan Creative Arts Fellowship, 1992. He is also the Director of the University of Pennsylvania/Moscow Conservatory Exchange Program, and President of Orchestra 2001, a leading contemporary music ensemble.
link to Jay Reise's webpage & soundclips

 

Anna Weesner

email: weesner@sas.upenn.edu
D.M.A., Cornell University, 1995
Associate Professor of Music, Director of Undergraduate Study

ASCAP Young Composers Award, 1995. Winner, Young American's Art Song Competition, with subsequent publication by G. Schirmer, 1995. Brian Israel Prize, 1995. American Academy of Arts and Letters Lakond Scholarship, 1993.

Her Song About Law and Light was commissioned by the 92nd St. Y in New York and premiered there by Dawn Upshaw and Richard Goode in 1996. She has also been commissioned by Network for New Music, Sequitur, and Music at the Anthology.

Her music has been performed by Gilbert Kalish, Scott Kluksdahl, David Starobin, the Cassatt quartet, the Cypress quartet, and Orchestra 2001. She has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony (1994, 1998), Foundation Royaumont in France (1996), the Seal Bay Festival and the Summit Institute in Park City, Utah.

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