Mark Gustavson

Mark Gustavson (born September 19, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American composer of contemporary classical music.

Biography

Gustavson lives in Mastic Beach, New York, and teaches at various universities in the New York City area, including Adelphi University and Nassau Community College. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1981 and received a D.M.A. from Columbia University in 1990. Gustavson also studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory with Ton DeLeeuw on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1985-86 and was a composition fellow at Tanglewood in 1979. His primary composition teachers were Chinary Ung, Ben Johnston and Fred Lerdahl.

Music

Jazz, the music of Charles Ives, and East Asian music have influenced Gustavson's style. He favors strictly notated music that often sounds improvised. Form is often based on different approaches to variations. Rhythm can at times be very complex or deceptively simple; for example, the third movement of Quintet for clarinet, two violins, viola, and cello is a four-voice canon of continuous eighth notes that create a background for the solo clarinet. Because of the unpredictable entrances of each voice an improvisatory quality is suggested. In A Fool's Journey, it is the complex textures that create the illusion of improvisation. The complex layering of lines or polyphony in this example purposely avoids the coming together of the independent voices.

	Quintet clip from the 3rd movement A Fool's Journey clip from 2nd movement
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His music has been recognized with various awards and prizes, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award (1987),^[1] the Joseph H. Bearns Prize, the BMI Student Composer Award (1979, 1982, 1983),^[2] and the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award.^[3]

In the first decade of the 21st century, Gustavson's attention turned to texts and vocal music. Two works of note are The Fisherman Songs for bass/baritone and piano and Lament, a monodrama for bass/baritone, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, female chorus, and double bass, using a poem of the same title by Dylan Thomas.

A recording with Quintet performed by Contempo^[4] and Dissolving Images for solo piano performed by Lisa Moore is to be released in 2010. Both works are published by Edition Peters.^[5]

Select list of compositions

Orchestra

• Dust Dance (2010)
• Hymn to the Vanished (2001) for string orchestra
• Silent Moon (1998)
• Waves (1988)

Wind ensemble

• The Emperor's Music (2000) for twelve antiphonal solo brass

Chamber

• Hymn to the Vanished (2013) for clarinet and piano
• Turning (2012) for bass clarinet, percussion, piano and double bass
• Chiftetelli (2010) for clarinet, 2 violins, viola and cello
• A Fool's Journey (1999) for flute (pic, alto), clarinet (bcl), percussion, violin and cello
• Two of Cups (1999) for clarinet and viola
• Albion (1997) for wind quintet
• Quintet (1993) for clarinet, 2 violins, viola and cello
• Bag o'Tales (1992) for saxophone quartet
• Plexus (1991) for flute(pic), harp, viola and cello
• Jag (1990) for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin and cello
• Twenty Variations (1982) for flute and piano

Vocal

• Lament (work in progress) text: Dylan Thomas monodrama for bass/baritone, bass clarinet, percussion. piano, female chorus and double-bass
• The Fisherman Songs text: collection (2010) for bass/baritone and piano
• The Four Love Songs (1984) for soprano, 2 clarinets, 2 percussion, viola and cello
• The Three Mirrors (1979) text: Edwin Muir for soprano, flute(alto), clarinet, trombone, piano(hammond organ), 3 percussion (tuned water glasses)

Solo instrumental

• The Lounge Pianist (2010) for vocalizing pianist
• Trickster (1997) for clarinet solo
• Dissolving Images (1986) for piano solo

Discography

• Dissolving Images, Lisa Moore, Edward Gilmore, Either/Or, Parnassus, Albany Records, Release date: July 1, 2013.
• Chiftetelli, Contemporary Chamber Players of the University of Chicago, CD Baby, Release date: September 10, 2010.

Bibliography

• Gustavson, Mark (1994) "Conversation in New York", Contemporary Music Review, Volume 10, American Composers: The Emerging Generation, pp. 121 – 132. ISBN 3-7186-5529-2

Notes and references

Sources

• Maurice Hinson and Wesley Roberts, "Guide to the Pianist's Repertoire, Fourth Edition", Indiana University Press, 2013, p. 459
• Patrick Hanudel, Album Review: "Gustavson: Chamber Music", "American Record Guide", January/February 2014, p. 114
• Buell, Richard, "The Smart, Persuasive Sounds of Young Dinosaurs", Boston Globe, 7 February 2001. Accessed via subscription 2 March 2010.
• Dyer, Richard, "Tanglewood Festival Celebrates Diversity of Contemporary Music", Boston Globe, 6 August 2006. Accessed via subscription 2 March 2010.
• Gowan, Bradford, "Review: Dissolving Images by Mark Gustavson", The Piano quarterly, Issue 148, Winter 1988/89, p. 16
• Griffiths, "Looking Eastward for Patterns and a Quiet Sensuality", New York Times, 10 October 1997. Accessed 2 March 2010.
• Kozinn, Allan, "The Classical and the Vernacular, a Cohesive Choice of the Contemporary", New York Times, 2 August 2006. Accessed 2 March 2010.
• Symphony Magazine, "BMI's 28th annual Student Composer Awards", Volume 31, Issues 3-5

External links

• NewMusicBox Sound Heard: Mark Gustavson—Dissolving Images Album Review, September 2, 2013
• Mark Gustavson | American Composer Official Website
• Kalvos & Damian Chronicle of the NonPop Revolution: A Fool's Journey Interview with Mark Gustavson, November 29, 2003

Authority control VIAF: 102484338

Persondata
Name	Gustavson, Mark
Alternative names
Short description	American composer
Date of birth	19 September 1959
Place of birth	Brooklyn, New York
Date of death
Place of death