Frank J. Oteri (born May 12, 1964) is a
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
-based
composer, a music journalist, lecturer, and
new music advocate
[Drew McManu]
An Interview with Frank J. Oteri
''The Partial Observer'', June 5, 2006.
His musical works have been performed in venues from
Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall to the
Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ori ...
. He was initially interested in composing for musical theatre, and an original musical of his was staged for a week at New York's Carter Hotel Theater in 1980 while he was still a student at
The High School of Music & Art
The High School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art" (or "M&A"), was a public specialized high school located at 443-465 West 135th Street in the borough of Manhattan, New York, from 1936 until 1984. In 1961, Music & Art and the High ...
, which later merged with the High School of Performing Arts as the
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.
He made a brief appearance in the
Alan Parker
Sir Alan William Parker (14 February 1944 – 31 July 2020) was an English filmmaker. His early career, beginning in his late teens, was spent as a copywriter and director of television advertisements. After about ten years of filming adverts ...
-directed motion picture
''Fame'' and scored two children's operas for the
Metropolitan Opera Guild's In School project. As an undergraduate at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
(1981–1985), he grew more interested in
minimalism,
microtonality
Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—interval (music), intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Wes ...
, and non-western music, and he completed a master's degree in
ethnomusicology at Columbia in 1990.
In the 1990s, he returned to writing extensively for the voice, setting poems by
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...
,
Margaret Atwood,
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
, and
Kenneth Patchen
Kenneth Patchen (December 13, 1911January 8, 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of Will ...
. In 1998 he began working with Italian painter and performance artist
Lucio Pozzi
Lucio Pozzi (born 1935 in Milan) is an Italian-born, American artist currently based in Hudson, New York, and Valeggio sul Mincio, Verona, Italy. He studied architecture in Rome before moving to New York City in 1962.
Pozzi is a painter whose p ...
on ''MACHUNAS'', an evening-length performance oratorio based on the life of
Fluxus
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
-founder
George Maciunas
George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
which they completed in 2002. In 2005, ''MACHUNAS'' was staged at the Museum of Contemporary Art in
Vilnius, Lithuania
Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...
, and was subsequently screened in New York City and San Francisco.
In February 2008, Oteri was composer-in-residence at the
Cornish College of the Arts
Cornish College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art college in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1914.
History
Cornish College of the Arts was founded in 1914 as the Cornish School of Music, by Nellie Cornish (1876–1956), a teacher of ...
in Seattle, Washington, where three of his compositions were performed: ''The Other Side of the Window'' (1995), a cycle of seven Margaret Atwood poems scored for female voice, two flutes, guitar, cello, and toy piano; ''is 7'' (2003) for solo harpsichord, performed by Trudy Chan; and ''Imagined Overtures'' (2005) for rock band in
36-tone equal temperament.
Oteri is also an active
music journalist
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...
and has been the editor of ''
NewMusicBox
''NewMusicBox'' is an e-zine launched by the American Music Center on May 1, 1999. The magazine includes interviews and articles concerning American contemporary music, composers, improvisers, and musicians.
A few interviews include renowned A ...
'' since its inception in 1999.
Oteri has served as the MC for the
ASCAP ''Thru The Walls'' showcase in New York City as well as
Meet The Composer
New Music USA is a new music organization formed by the merging of the American Music Center with Meet The Composer on November 8, 2011. The new organization retains the granting programs of the two former organizations as well as two media progra ...
's ''The Works'' marathon in Minneapolis in 2002. From 2000 to 2010, he curated his own series, ''21st Century Schizoid Music'', at the
Cornelia Street Cafe
The Cornelia Street Cafe, was a restaurant & bar at 29 Cornelia Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, opened in July 1977. The cafe closed at the end of 2018, due to rising rents from the gentrification of the West Village; ending on its ho ...
in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.
In 2007, Oteri was the recipient of the ASCAP Victor Herbert Award for his “distinguished service to American music as composer, journalist, editor, broadcaster, impresario, and advocate” and in 2012 he additionally received an ASCAP
Deems Taylor
Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American music critic, composer, and promoter of classical music. Nat Benchley, co-editor of ''The Lost Algonquin Roundtable'', referred to him as "the dean of American music."
Earl ...
Award for an article he wrote about
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by the ...
' ''
The Smile Sessions
''The Smile Sessions'' is a compilation album and box set recorded by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on October 31, 2011 by Capitol Records. The set is the follow-up to '' The Pet Sounds Sessions'' (1997), this time focusing on the ...
''. In 2018, he received the Composers Now Visionary Award and the Untwelve Micro-Cosmos (Mikrokosmos) Microtonal Pedagogy Award. In 2019, he was elected vice president of the
International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.
The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following th ...
(ISCM). In January 2021, the
South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) under the direction of
Delta David Gier premiered Oteri's pandemic-themed orchestral work ''Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow'' for a limited, physically-distanced live audience, due to the pandemic; it was also streamed online on the SDSO's Facebook page.
South Dakota Symphony to premiere Frank J. Oteri’s work reflecting on COVID, in person and online
''The Hub'' (published by the League of American Orchestras
The League of American Orchestras, formerly the American Symphony Orchestra League, is a North American service organization with 700 member orchestras of all budget sizes and types, plus individual and institutional members.
Based in New York Ci ...
), 2021.
Articles and interviews
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References
External links
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NewMusicBox
'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oteri, Frank J.
American male classical composers
American classical composers
20th-century classical composers
21st-century classical composers
1964 births
Living people
21st-century American composers
The High School of Music & Art alumni
20th-century American composers
20th-century American male musicians
21st-century American male musicians