Paul Steenhuisen (born 1965, Vancouver, Canada) is an independent composer working with a broad range of acoustic and digital media. His concert music consists of orchestral, chamber, solo, and vocal music, and often includes live electronics and soundfiles. Additionally, he creates electroacoustic, radio, and installation pieces. Paul Steenhuisen’s music is regularly performed and broadcast in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. He also contributes all audio content and programming to the Hyposurface installation project, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Paul Steenhuisen obtained his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from the University of British Columbia, where he studied with Keith Hamel. Between academic degrees, he studied with Louis Andriessen and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Royal Conservatory of Music, The Hague. While living in Amsterdam, he also worked with Michael Finnissy in Hove, England. Subsequently, he was one of ten composers selected to take part in the Cursus de Composition et Informatiques at IRCAM [1] (Paris, 1996/97), where he had lessons with Tristan Murail. He also attended masterclasses and individual lessons with Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, Jean-Claude Risset, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Brian Ferneyhough, Frederic Rzewski, Magnus Lindberg, and others.
During his student years, Steenhuisen was laureate of more than a dozen national and international awards for his music. These include four prizes in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Young Composers Competition, seven in the PROCAN/SOCAN Competition, first prize in the Vancouver New Music Composers Competition, and the Governor General of Canada Gold Medal as the outstanding student in all faculties (UBC, 1990).[2][3] Music by Paul Steenhuisen was also selected for competition at the Gaudeamus Music Week. After a winter residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Paul Steenhuisen became Composer in Residence with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1998–2000, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Music Director). At the behest of the TSO, he wrote the chamber work Ciphering in Tongues, and orchestral pieces Airstream, and Pensacola (a melodrama for orchestra, computer, and spatialized brass).[4] Pensacola has also been performed by the Esprit Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Roberto Abbado, conductor), and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (with Alexander Mickelthwate). During this time, Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra commissioned another orchestral piece, Your Soul is a Bottle Full of Thirsting Salt.[5]
Wonder, for orchestra, tape, and soprano, was commissioned by the CBC for the CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra, and selected to represented Canada at the International Rostrum of Composers (UNESCO, Paris). It was ranked third in the world, and ascribed the honour of ‘recommended’ work, with subsequent broadcasts in twenty-five countries. As a result, the Austrian Radio Philharmonic also performed the work (Arturo Tamayo, conductor) and commissioned Bread for Sylvain Cambreling and Klangforum Wien to perform at MuzikProtokoll in Graz, Austria. Bread was also performed at the 2001 ISCM World Music Days in Yokohama, Japan, by the Tokyo ensemble COmeT, and at the BONK festival (Tampa, USA), where Steenhuisen was a frequent guest. In 2003, Dr. Steenhuisen was appointed Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Alberta, where he was the founder of the Electroacoustic Research Studios (UA-EARS).[6] He served as director of the new studios until his resignation in 2007. UA-EARS studios were created with major project funding from the Endowment Fund for the Future, the Faculty of Arts, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. In early 2009, the University of Alberta Press published its first music text, Steenhuisen’s Sonic Mosaics: Conversations with Composers, a collection of interviews with thirty-two composers.
In 2011, Paul Steenhuisen was awarded the Victor Martyn Lynch Staunton Award as the outstanding mid-career artist in music by the Canada Council.
ORCHESTRAL
ENSEMBLE
SOLO
VOICE
ELECTROACOUSTIC AND INSTALLATION WORKS
Music by Paul Steenhuisen has been commissioned and performed by many contemporary music performers and presenters.
Orchestras: Esprit Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Austrian Radio Philharmonic, CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra,[7] The Composer’s Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Conductors: Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Roberto Abbado, Arturo Tamayo, Sylvain Cambreling, Walter Boudreau, Bramwell Tovey, Owen Underhill, Alex Pauk, Gary Kulesha, Kunitake Kokaji, Alexander Mickelthwate.
Ensembles: Klangforum Wien, New Music Concerts (Toronto), SMCQ, Vancouver New Music, Hilliard Ensemble,[8] Continuum, Ensemble Offspring,[9][10] Ensemble Télèmaque, Soundstreams Canada,[11] New Works Calgary, Kovalis Duo, Trio Fibonacci, Ensemble 2e2m, Ensemble Tokyo COmeT,[12] Musica Verticale, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Gryphon Trio, Battery Park Percussion.
Soloists: Margaret Lancaster, Lori Freedman, Roger Admiral, Catherine Dubosc, Benny Sluchin, Valdine Anderson, Guido Arbonelli, Irvine Arditti, Marc Couroux, Barbara Hannigan, Marshall McGuire, Elizabeth Skillings, Corey Hamm, Kathryn Cernauskas, Laura McPheeters, Anne La Berge, Kathleen Corcoran, Stacy Robinson, Laurel Rudd, Alain Trudel, John Hess, Jane Archibald,[13] Barbara Pritchard.
Choirs: Netherlands Chamber Choir, Elektra Women’s Choir, Phoenix Chamber Choir.
Paul Steenhuisen is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre,[14] served on the Council of the Canadian League of Composers (2000–2008),[15] and was President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) Canadian Section (2003–2008).[16] He also serves on the Editorial Board of the World New Music Magazine.[17]
AMP represents the music of Paul Steenhuisen, Howard Bashaw, Keith Hamel, Bob Pritchard, James Harley, André Ristic, Gordon Fitzell, and Aaron Gervais.
Since 1987, Paul Steenhuisen has made contributions to numerous magazines and journals, including Discorder (CiTR Radio, Vancouver), MusicWorks,[18] Circuit,[19] Wholenote Magazine, Anjelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities,[20] Contemporary Music Review,[21] and others. "Sonic Mosaics: Conversations with Composers" (UA Press, 2009) is a 314 page collection of interviews with composers. Reviews of the book can be found here.
Composers interviewed: R. Murray Schafer, Robert Normandeau, Chris Paul Harman, Linda Catlin Smith, Alexina Louie, Omar Daniel, Michael Finnissy, John Weinzweig, Udo Kasemets, Pierre Boulez, Barbara Croall, James Rolfe, John Beckwith, Yannick Plamondon, Marc Couroux, George Crumb, Peter Hatch, John Oswald, Francis Dhomont, Martin Arnold, Helmut Lachenmann, Juliet Palmer, Christian Wolff, Mauricio Kagel, John Rea, Gary Kulesha, Howard Bashaw, Christopher Butterfield, Keith Hamel, Jean Piché, James Harley, Hildegard Westerkamp.