Howard Frazin
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Howard Frazin (b. 1964) is a composer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He began his formal musical training at the New England Conservatory, and subsequently studied at the University of Minnesota with Dominick Argento. Since 1991, Frazin has taught Composition at the Longy School of Music and is currently president of Composers in Red Sneakers, a Cambridge-based composer's collective.
Frazin's music is for the most part recognizably tonal, and is characterized by an expressive style that often develops and repeats distinctive small motifs, Frazin's works have been performed throughout the US, Canada, France, and Russia, including festivals at Aspen, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Gamper Contemporary Music Festival, Yellow Barn Summer Music Festival, the Janus 21 Ensemble Summer Series, the Composers' Forum of New York, the Society of Composers National Conference, and elsewhere.
Frazin's oratorio, The Voice of Isaac, commissioned by PALS Children's Chorus, was premiered at Boston's Jordan Hall in March 2003 and praised by the Boston Globe as "...clear in design and Brittenesque in texture...ingeniously scored...(having an) almost unbearable poignancy."
In March 2007, Frazin's "Theme and Reverberations for Two Tubas and Orchestra" was premiered at Faneuil Hall, in Boston MA. It was performed by the Boston Classical Orchestra, under Steven Lipsitt. The Tuba soloists were Boston Symphony principal Mike Roylance and pediatrician/jazz musician Eli Newberger.