David MacIntyre (composer)

David MacIntyre (born 1952) is a Canadian composer of opera, music theatre, choral, orchestral and chamber music, and site-specific works in dance and theatre. Based in Vancouver. He is a professor of Music Composition at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.

Biography

MacIntyre was born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan; as a child, he studied brass instruments, theatre arts, voice and piano. In 1969, he attended the Banff School for Fine Arts where he determined to build a career in the performing arts.^[1] He attended the University of Saskatchewan (1970–72), where he studied composition with Murray Adaskin, and University of Victoria (73-75 B.Mus and 77-79 M.Mus), where he studied with Rudolf Komorous. In 1979, he was invited to join the faculty at Simon Fraser University where he co-founded the Contemporary music program and where he continues to teach courses in music composition and collaboration in the School for the Contemporary Arts. In 1990, he met a dancer Catherine Josephine Lubinsky and they married in 1992. ^[2]

Musical compositions

Sisyphus (1983), his collaboration with choreographer Karen Jamieson, was celebrated as one of Ten Choreographic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century by Danse Canada Dance magazine. His opera The Architect (1994), in collaboration with playwright Tom Cone, was the first opera to be commissioned by the Vancouver Opera and his opera cabaret Love in Public (2012), a staged, four-singer setting of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's masterpiece Sonnets from the Portuguese, was nominated for Outstanding Original Composition by Jesse Richardson Theatre Awards in 2012. His musical drama Tom Pinkerton, The Ballad of Butterfly's Son (2008), created in collaboration with playwright Hiro Kanagawa, was shortlisted for Best Musical of 2012 by the Playwrights Guild of Canada.^[3] MacIntyre's music has been performed in over thirty countries including Canada, Czech Republic, England, Finland, Holland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and USA.

Style

MacIntyre is predominantly known as a composer for the theatre with successful operas, music theatre works, instrumental theatre works, art songs, and choral works. His music is noted for its hypnotizing rhythm, lyricism and sleek orchestration.^[4] A prominent example would be his Ave Maria (1994), which is one of his most widely known and performed compositions.

Selected works

• "Sisyphus" (1983)
• "The Architect" (1994)
• "Ave Maria" (1994)
• "Love in Public" (2004)
• "Alleluia" (2011)

References

External links

• Canadian Music Centre, accessed 16 February 2010
• Official website