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Composers BureauHarold BlumenfeldBiography
Present focus: upon legacy of musical works. Two prime targets: [1] securing full production of latest opera, BORGIA INFAMI, featured on New York City Opera's 2003 VOX series; and [2] recording of newly revised 1997 symphonic work with voices, VERS SATANIQUES after Baudelaire. This work to be recorded 3-5 November Katowice, by National Radio Orchestra of Poland, Joel Suben conducting, with Donnie Ray Albert, baritone and Christine Schadeberg, mezzo. Distribution to European Broadcasting Union stations. VERS to form central work in subsequent compact disk entitled “Cycles”, with Centaur Records. Blumenfeld's newly completed comprehensive American Music Center website offers sound excerpts, 200 score pages, notes for 34 works including operas. New York City Opera performed opera Borgia Infami Act One May 2003 on new works showcase, George Manahan conducting. Libretto by Charles Kondek after Klabund, Victor Hugo. Opening on 1492 coronation of notorious Borgia pope Alexander VI, action moves to excommunication and fiery martyrdom of pope's nemesis, Savonarola; then turning focus upon pope's daughter Lucrezia, fabled poisoner of clan's enemies. Work initiated 1998 at Bogliasco Foundation, Genova, completed and published 2002. New works completed 2003: For Sion – Oh Thee! - choral cycle after Byron's Hebrew Melodies, written for Washington University sesquicentennial celebration. Premiere April 2004, St Louis. Sterne und Stein, song cycle after Rudolf Gelpke, orientalist, premiere February 2004, St Louis. The earlier Songs of Cassis premiered January 2004 at Jonesboro composers conference. New song cycle , Oak, Feather, and Stone written 2004 at Djerass artists retreat. Albany Records issued Blumenfeld's Mythologies CD in 2001. Disk contains title work after poetry of Derek Walcott [ Voices of Change, Dallas], together with complete setting of Hart Crane's V oyages [ NY Contemporary Chamber Ensemble] and War Lament after Siegfried Sassoon's World War poetry for chorus with guitar [ Gregg Smith Singers]. Recorded Albany Records TROY 443. Nineties were given over to sequence of works inspired by surreal writing of Arthur Rimbaud: the frequently performed La Face cendrée [mezzo, cello, piano]; Ange de flamme et de glace [ baritone, seven players, tape], and Carnet de damné [“ Adieu” from “ Une Saison en enfer” verbatim, for soprano, 8 players], - and two ten-minute symphonic movements – placid Meadows of Emerald and Iron, and cataclysmic Diluvial – redolent of Rimbaud's “ Illuminations” . All recorded Centaur Records CRC 2277. Composer's Rimbaud oeuvre culminated in 1996 Cincinnati CCM premiere of two-act opera, Seasons in Hell – A Life of Rimbaud , production playing to full houses , Gerhard Samuel, conducting. Dual lives of eruptive prodigy who reinvented literature as teen-ager, his renunciation of poetry at 19 and subsequent ill-fated career as coffee trader and gun-runner in Ethiopia are cinematically intertwined. Libretto, Kondek. Work initiated 1992, Camargo Foundation, Cassis. Recorded complete, Albany Records Troy 262/63. 18-minute video of premiere excerpts produced. As counterpoise to Rimbaldian rigors, Blumenfeld and Kondek had created FOURSCORE, AN OPERA OF OPPOSITES (1986), thickly ensembled large-cast farce involving interaction of four families, each cast in a classic temperament. Sanguine pitted against Melancholy, Choleric versus Phlegmatic. Spun out in intricate intrigue modeled after Johann Nestroy's “ Haus der Temperamente” . CCM workshop production. En route also bagatelle-opera - BREAKFAST WALTZES, in manner of Molnar. It has played in St Louis, Des Moines Metro Opera, and – in earlier form – at Chicago Opera Theater. Recent commission: Voci Luminose , two violins, orchestra , 1996 Umea Symfoni Orkester, Sweden. Premiere November 1996, Swedish telecasts.. Previously active as critic, having penned over one hundred feature articles on music and theater for Sunday arts pages of St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Los Angeles Times . This together with reviews of new operas for Opera News and Opera [ UK], etc. He is translator of Praetorius' Syntagma Musicum [ Da Capo Press ] and a study on Adorno published in Musical Quarterly 1984, and again in 1991 to grace its 75th anniversary issue. Blumenfeld born Seattle, studied Yale with Hindemith; University of Zurich. Early on trained with Leonard Bernstein, Boris Goldovsky Tanglewood in conducting, opera direction. From Seventies, awards from American Academy & Institute, National Endowment for Arts for his musical works. Active in musicology, criticism. Prof Emeritus, Washington University in St. Louis. Works published by MMB Music, Inc., St. Louis. Academic / Professional
Discography
Further Information
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Last updated
10/31/2007 |
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Harold Blumenfeld is a composer given to language, opera, and the human voice.