E-mail: info@composersconcordance.org

MISSION OF THE COMPOSERS CONCORDANCE

HISTORY OF THE COMPOSERS CONCORDANCE

COMPOSERS CONCORDANCE ADVISORS

INFORMATION ON PRINCIPAL PERSONNEL

PATRICK HARDISH, PATRICK HARDISH, composer, has had his music performed throughout the United States, Europe, Brazil and Japan. Commissions have come from the Composers Guild of New Jersey, Queens Philharmonia, Adolphe Saxquartette, and the North/South Consonance Ensemble, among others. His music is published by Calabrese Brothers Music, and Deffner Publications and is recorded on Capstone Records (The Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo) and Finnadar (William Schimmel, accordion). Two new Capstone CDs to be released later this year by Esther Lamneck, clarinet and The Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo will included two recent works by Mr. Hardish. The composer has been in residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, has lectured and given presentations of his music at New York University and the Governor's School for the Gifted in Virginia, has been guest composer at WNYC-FM, WKCR-FM Radio and Columbia University, has received several awards from Meet The Composer, and has been awarded the Margaret Fairbanks Jory Copying Assistance Program Award from the American Music Center. He has contributed to MLA's Notes and the New Music Connoisseur magazine where he serves on that magazine's Editorial Board. Mr. Hardish has studied music at the Juilliard School, Queens College of the CUNY (BA), Bennington College, and done graduate work at Columbia University. Before becoming a composer he played drums professionally for several years in dance bands and to a lesser extent in shows. He also holds a MS degree in information science from the Pratt Institute. He is co-founder and co-director of the Composers Concordance and recently retired as a Senior Librarian with The New York Public Library.

JOSEPH PEHRSON, Director, composer, has written works for a wide variety of media including orchestra and chamber works. They have been performed at numerous venues including Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Symphony Space in New York and throughout the U.S. and Eastern Europe. Since 1983 Mr. Pehrson has been co-director of the Composers Concordance in New York. He studied at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan (DMA 1981). Pehrson's teachers included composers Leslie Bassett, Joseph Schwantner, and, informally, Otto Luening and Elie Siegmeister in New York.TO JOSEPH PEHRSON'S WEBPAGE

WILLIAM HOLAB, Associate Director, composer, (b. 1958) was educated at the University of Michigan (BA) and the Juilliard School. His composition teachers include William Albright, William Bolcom, David Diamond and Christopher Rouse. Commissions resulting in performances have come from the Chicago Ballet Company, Ballet Entre Nous, Keene State College Guitar Orchestra, Joseph Golan (principal second violin with the Chicago Symphony), the group Concertanz and many others. Honors include the Victor Herbert/ASCAP Award (first place), the David B. Marshall Award, National Music Theater Network award and several Meet the Composer awards. Currently he is Director of Sales and Publishing for Schott Music Corporation in the United States, and Director of Production for the New York division of Universal Edition. His music is published by C.F. Peters, Corp.
WILLIAM RHOADS
Bill Rhoads, Associate Director, composer, began his musical career at the age of fifteen as a professional guitarist with various hard rock and jazz groups in the New York area. He then went on to study composition and philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and audio engineering and production at the Institute of Audio Research in New York City. He has been active as board member of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, founder/director of the Ear & Now and 99˘ Concert Series', and co-director of Composers Concordance in New York City. His own music has been performed by ensembles throughout the U.S., including Present Music of Milwaukee, Bach, Dancing, and Dynamite Society, the New World Symphony, and the Sub-Tropics Festival. Current projects include new works for Bach, Dancing, and Dynamite Society, organist, Carson Cooman, and Sequitur in New York City. He has served the music industry throughout his career in various capacities: Director of Concert Music at Carl Fischer Music Publishers, Assistant Mastering Engineer at Sony Classical, Board Member of the Music Publishers Association, Honorary Advisory Board for The Women's Philharmonic, and numerous committees for organizations serving the needs of composers, educators, and performers, including ASCAP, MENC, and the American Symphony Orchestra League.


GENE PRITSKER, Associate Director: Composer/guitarist/rapper Gene Pritsker has written over two hundred compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles, etc. All his compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles and are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures. He is the founder and leader o f Sound Liberation; an eclectic band playing the New York club circuit. Other organizations he is associated with include: Composers’ Concordance (advisory board since ‘96), Absolute Ensemble (co-founder/composer-in -residence ‘93-’96), The American Composers Forum (member NY chapter since ‘96), and The New Music Connoisseur magazine (critic since ‘97). Gene's website is here: www.genepritsker.com


LEV ZHURBIN (a.k.a. Ljova), Honorary Director, is a New York-based musician who enjoys a busy life as a composer, arranger and violist. He is as comfortable composing for a classical ensemble as he is producing electronic music, and as delighted to be performing Bach as well as Schoenberg, or improvising upon a tune by Gershwin, or perhaps no author at all. Son of the celebrated Russian composer and producer Alexander Zhurbin, and poet Irena Ginzburg, Lev began his musical training in his native Moscow (Russia) at age four on the violin, studying with Galina Turchaninova (who also taught Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin, among others). Moving to New York in 1990, he later continued his studies at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division with Emanuel Vardi and Karen Ritscher, and at The Juilliard School with violist and composer Samuel Rhodes. Lev has studied composition with his father, as well as Bruce Adolphe, Christopher Vassiliades, Tom Cipullo and Alexander Yagupsky. Lev's numerous compositions have been widely performed in the United States and Europe, as well as throughout the world via the Internet. In New York, Lev's music has been heard on the stages of Weill Recital Hall, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, Bargemusic, the Angel Orensanz Center for the Arts, LaMama E.T.C., The Living Room, Paul Hall at the Juilliard School, among other venues. In Europe, Lev's music has been featured at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany. Lev's "Sicilienne" for violin and piano (2000) has been greatly championed by Grammy-nominated violinist Robert McDuffie, who has performed it many times and recorded it for National Public Radio's "Performance Today". In April of 2002, the Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts produced a concert comprised of twelve premieres of new music by Lev Zhurbin. Shortly before graduating from Juilliard, Lev became involved with many diverse projects involving music and collaboration on the Internet, as well as film and theatre projects. The resulting and ongoing projects have yielded an extensive archive of extremely diverse content, which may be accessed via the web at www.Ljova.com


BARRY L. COHEN,
the current founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of the

New Music Connoisseur magazine:

As a devoted music listener for most of his life, he also took advantage of as many opportunities as possible to absorb musical knowledge by reading, listening to instructive recordings, and applying for courses in music appreciation. This may actually go back to the fourth grade when he scored 100 percent in the city-wide standard music appreciation test, a phenomenon long gone from the educational scene. After developing a mellow alto voice, he sang solos and duets in his Orthodox synagogue under the guidance of renowned cantor Israel Zuckerberg. But until the purchase of a Kueng recorder at age 30 and then later in another milestone the discovery of table top electronic/computer music in 1984 (at age 52), had no formal training, self- or otherwise. In the late 1980's he studied composition and theory privately with Adrian Carr and then very briefly with Eric Ewazen, both of whom having studied with Milton Babbitt.

His educational background has been in business studies (BS and MBA, marketing, NYU). As a part-time coordinator of photo/film/video activities for the Brooklyn Arts Council (1968-1988), which he served alongside people like Wendy Chambers (who would become the coincidental spark in the Composers Concordance connection), Barry developed a newsletter called Brooklyn's Where It's At, and as Medical Assistance Program Librarian for the City, a staff newsletter, MAP [later MEP] World. As an enthusiastic devotee also of puzzles and word games, has made contributions to at least a dozen such publications and published a chapter in Eugene Maleska's My Favorite Word Games #2.

NMC is the outgrowth of a newsletter on the performing arts he called Free Admissions, created upon his retirement from City service, which led to the discovery that there was a huge gap in critical coverage of the enormous amount of contemporary music activities going on, especially in New York, as opposed to the visual arts, literature and theater, which have been covered profusely. Thus was born the Connoisseur's Rack, later The Music Connoisseur (which once included a puzzle feature item) and now New Music Connoisseur. Among his many responsibilities has been coverage of many live musical events and CDs. BACK TO COMPOSERS CONCORDANCE SCHEDULE PAGE