Michael Hersch
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Michael Nathaniel Hersch (b. June 25, 1971) is an American composer and pianist.
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[edit] Biography
Initial Inspiration and Musical Education
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Reston, Virginia, Hersch was introduced to classical music at the age of 18 by his younger brother Jamie, who showed him a videotape of Georg Solti conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This "shook me," Hersch has written. "It scrambled everything. That's when I knew that I was to be a composer... My whole life started over at that moment."
He almost immediately began studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Hersch has stated that "with Morris Cotel - the teacher I spent the most time with during my studies at the Peabody Conservatory - lessons consisted only of week after week coming into the teacher's studio, playing and singing through the latest work at the piano and his saying nothing more than, 'Okay. Fine. See you next week.' He believed that a composer confronting his or herself in this manner would force the composer to look in the mirror seeing, along with the good, all the flaws."[1] Hersch moved on to the Moscow Conservatory, where he worked with Albert Leman and Roman Ledenev, and received a Certificate in Composition in 1995. He also worked with John Corigliano, John Harbison and George Rochberg at a program for young composers in 1995. Hersch then returned to Peabody for graduate studies.
Early Success
His first success came when Marin Alsop selected Elegy for Strings as winner of the American Composers Prize, and conducted it at Lincoln Center in New York in 1997. That year also saw Hersch win a Guggenheim Fellowship and become a fellow at the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center, where he worked with Christopher Rouse, followed by fellowships at the Norfolk Festival for Contemporary Music and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan in 1998. In 2000 Hersch won the Rome Prize, where he worked with Luciano Berio, and in 2001 the Berlin Prize, where he worked with Hans Werner Henze.
A CD of orchestral works with Marin Alsop conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has been released on the Naxos Records label, and another disc on the Vanguard Classics label features Mr. Hersch as a pianist, performing not only his own work, but works of Morton Feldman, Wolfgang Rihm, and Josquin des Pres.
[edit] List of Selected Works
[edit] Orchestra
- On Sorrow, Anger and Reflection (1998), premiered by the CBC Vancouver Symphony
- Ashes of Memory (1998-99), premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Mariss Jansons conducting
- Recollections of Fear, Hope and Discontent (1998), premiered by the New York Chamber Symphony
- Symphony No. 1 (1999), commissioned and performed as part of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's centennial season, Alan Gilbert conducting
- Umbra (2001), written for the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Robert Spano
- Symphony No. 2 (2001), commission by the Pittsburgh Symphony and Mariss Jansons
- Fracta (2003), commission by the Pittsburgh Symphony
- Arraché (2005), commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
[edit] Orchestra with soloist
- Piano Concerto (2002), premiered by Garrick Ohlsson and a co-commission of the Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Oregon symphonies
[edit] Chamber
- Elegy for Strings (1993), winner of the American Composers Prize, conducted at Lincoln Center by Marin Alsop
- Trio No. 1, for violin, clarinet & piano'(1995)
- Trio No. 2, for violin, clarinet & piano (1998), commissioned by the Verdehr Trio
- Piano Quartet (1999), commissioned and premiered by the Ellen Taafe Zwilich Young Composers Workshop at Carnegie Hall
- Quartet for Horn, Violin, Cello, and Piano, commissioned by the Orchestra of St. Luke's
- After Hölderlin's Hälfte des Lebens, for clarinet & cello (2000), written for the Belgian clarinetist Walter Boeykens for the Romaeuropa Festival
- Two Pieces for Cello and Piano (2000)
- After Hölderlin's Hälfte des Lebens, for viola & cello (2002)
- Octet for Strings, for 4 violins, 2 violas & 2 cellos (2002),commissioned by Boris Pergamenschikow and the Kronberg Akademie, premiered at the Schloss Neuhardenberg Festival in Berlin
- Variations on a Poem, for piano, violin, & cello (2003), commissioned by Sequenza
[edit] Solo Instrumental
- Sonata for Unaccompanied Viola (1993)
- Sonata No.1 for Unaccompanied Cello (1994)
- Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin (1999)
- Tramontane, for solo piano (2000)
- Reflections on a Work of Henze (2001), performed by Hersch for Hans Werner Henze on the occasion of Henze's 75th birthday
- Sonata No. 2 for Unaccompanied Cello (2001),written for American cellist Daniel Gaisford
- Recordatio, for piano solo, (in memory of Luciano Berio)(2003)
- Two Pieces for Piano, a transcription of the first two movements of the Piano Concerto
- Miłosz Fragments, for piano (2003)
- the wreckage of flowers: twenty-one pieces after poetry and prose of Czesław Miłosz (2003), a sonata for violin and piano, commissioned by Midori
- The Vanishing Pavilions (2005),solo piano work after poetry of Christopher Middleton
[edit] Vocal
- Two Songs for soprano and piano (1993)
- Elegy, for baritone & piano (2000), poem by Theodore Roethke
- It Was Beginning Winter, for baritone & piano (2000), poem by Theodore Roethke
