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Allen Raymond Shearer (born October 5, 1943 in
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, Washington) is an American composer and baritone.


Life

Shearer’s early musical experiences were as a singer; the majority of his works are for the voice or voices, with a later emphasis on
opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
. With his first wife, pianist
Barbara Shearer Barbara Shearer (September 16, 1936, in Ottawa, Illinois – December 6, 2005) was an American pianist and pedagogue at the University of California, Berkeley. Early life and education Shearer spent her childhood in the rural Midwest. She attend ...
(1936–2005), Shearer's performances included
art song An art song is a Western vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment, and usually in the classical art music tradition. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the collective genre of such songs ...
s, some of which were his own. He studied at the
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1972, and at the
Mozarteum Mozarteum University Salzburg (German: ''Universität Mozarteum Salzburg'') is one of three affiliated but separate (it is actually a state university) entities under the “Mozarteum” moniker in Salzburg municipality; the International Moz ...
in
Salzburg, Austria Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...
where he received diplomas in concert singing and opera. He taught voice in Special Programs at the
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
. Among his composition teachers were
Fred Lerdahl Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl (born March 10, 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin) is the Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on musical grammar and cogn ...
,
Seymour Shifrin Seymour Shifrin (28 February 1926 – 26 September 1979) was an American composer. He was described by ''Time Magazine'' as "one of the most significant composers of his generation." Shifrin's ''Satires of Circumstance'' (1964, text by Thomas Ha ...
,
Andrew Imbrie Andrew Welsh Imbrie (April 6, 1921 – December 5, 2007) was an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist. Career Imbrie was born in New York City and began his musical training as a pianist when he was 4. In 1937, he went to Par ...
and
Max Deutsch Max Deutsch (17 November 1892 – 22 November 1982) was an Austrian-French composer, conductor, and academic teacher. He studied with Arnold Schönberg and was his assistant. Teaching at the Sorbonne and the École Normale de Musique de Paris, he ...
, with whom he studied in Paris. He has received many awards in music, including the
Rome Prize Fellowship The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...
, the
Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...
Award, the Sylvia Goldstein Award, a
Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...
Scholarship, residencies at the
MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...
, and grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
.


Musical style

When asked about his musical style in the discussion preceding the 2009 premiere of his opera ''The Dawn Makers'', Shearer answered that it varies according to the demands of the medium. Critics also describe it variously. ''The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music'' observes that Shearer’s music, "though it recalls postwar serialism in its rhythms and textures, relies on traditional counterpoint and on tonal centers." Its lyric quality is frequently cited: Jeff Rosenfeld, reviewing Shearer’s ''Outbound Passenger'', found the music "tuneful and harmonious;" and of Shearer’s cantata ''King Midas'', critic
Robert Commanday Robert Paul Commanday (18 June 1922 – 3 September 2015) was an American music critic who specialized in classical music. Among the leading critics of the West Coast, Commanday was a major presence in the Bay Area music scene over a five-dec ...
wrote, ‘The singing lines are fluid and supple, animated, alive; the harmony and scoring for a quintet of instruments and percussion battery (two players), rich but delicately so." In the British periodical ''Opera'', Allan Ulrich wrote that the score of Shearer’s chamber opera ''The Dawn Makers'' has "genuine personality. The hour-long opera abounds in extended ariosos and bravura outbursts and unfurls in a conservative idiom, spiced with dissonances which neatly evade the neo-Romantic pitfalls that prevail in American opera circles." Of the same work, Thomas Busse wrote in ''San Francisco Classical Voice'', "The music’s greatest strength was its singability, attributable to the composer’s being a vocalist himself. I would describe Shearer’s eclectic style as more declamatory than lyrical." Of Shearer's opera ''Middlemarch in Spring'' Janos Gereben wrote in the ''San Francisco Examiner'', "Shearer's music is pleasantly dissonant, with a sound that sticks in the ears and memory. It's ambiguous music, seemingly wondering icbetween keys, but landing securely each time."Gereben, Janos, "Middlemarch--literature's gift to opera," San Francisco Examiner, March 20, 2015


Recent works


Opera


Instrumental works


Choral works


Vocal works


Discography


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shearer, Allen 1943 births Living people American male classical composers American classical composers American operatic baritones American opera composers Male opera composers 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male opera singers 20th-century classical composers 21st-century American composers 21st-century classical composers 21st-century American male musicians University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Mozarteum University Salzburg alumni Musicians from Seattle Singers from Washington (state) Classical musicians from Washington (state)