HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Jan Swafford
OR:
Jan Swafford on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

Jan Swafford (born September 10, 1946) is an American author and composer. He earned his
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
'' magna cum laude'' from
Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
and his M.M.A. and
D.M.A. The Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) is a doctoral academic degree in music. The DMA combines advanced studies in an applied area of specialization (usually music performance, music composition, or conducting) with graduate-level academic study in su ...
from the
Yale School of Music The Yale School of Music (often abbreviated to YSM) is one of the 12 professional schools at Yale University. It offers three graduate degrees: Master of Music (MM), Master of Musical Arts (MMA), and Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), as well as a join ...
. His teachers included
Earl Kim Earl Kim (1920–1998; née Eul Kim) was an American composer, and music pedagogue. He was of Korean–descent. Early life, education, and training Kim was born on January 6, 1920 in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began p ...
at Harvard,
Jacob Druckman Jacob Raphael Druckman (June 26, 1928 – May 24, 1996) was an American composer born in Philadelphia. Life A graduate of the Juilliard School in 1956, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1 ...
at Yale, and
Betsy Jolas Elizabeth Jolas (born 5 August 1926) is a Franco-American composer. Biography Jolas was born in Paris in 1926. Her mother, the American translator Maria McDonald, was a singer. Her father, the poet and journalist Eugene Jolas, founded and edited ...
at
Tanglewood Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the ...
.''Jan Swafford & Glann Gass: Chamber Works''
The Scott Chamber Players (album notes),
Database of Recorded American Music The Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) is a continuously growing, online resource providing on-demand, high-quality streaming media access to nearly 9,000 essential musical works from 15 record labels, along with their liner notes, album a ...
He has written respected musical biographies of Charles Ives, Johannes Brahms,
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
, and
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
as well as the ''Vintage Guide to Classical Music''. He appeared in the award-winning 2018 German documentary ''
The Unanswered Ives ''The Unanswered Ives'' is an hour-long documentary about the life and musical career of the American composer Charles Ives.List of prize winners for 2019 Golden Prague Film Festival Written and directed by German film maker Anne-Kathrin Peitz, ...
''.


Works

Swafford has written columns on music and other subjects in '' Slate'', and is heard as a commentator on
NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. He is a regular program annotator for orchestras and venues including the
Boston Symphony The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
,
Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Se ...
, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera, and Carnegie Hall. His writing honors include a 2012 Deems Taylor Award for internet writing and a Mellon Fellowship at Harvard. His Brahms and Ives biographies were end-of-year Critics' Choices in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. The Ives biography was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award in biography and won the Pen-Winship prize for a book on a New England subject. His biography ''Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph'' in its first week appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. He has taught at schools including
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
, Amherst College,
Tufts Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning ...
, and
Boston Conservatory Boston Conservatory at Berklee (formerly The Boston Conservatory) is a private performing arts conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance, music, and theater. Boston Conservatory was founded ...
. Swafford's music, which is highly lyrical and moves freely between
tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is ca ...
and atonality, has been called New Romantic in style. There are equal if less overt contributions from world music, especially
Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...
and Balinese, and from
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
and blues. The titles of his works reveal a steady inspiration from nature and landscape. The composer views his own work as a kind of
classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthet ...
: a concern with clarity, directness, and expression, or as he puts it, "music that sounds familiar though it is new, works that sound like they wrote themselves." Notable are his
orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
l works ''Landscape with Traveler'' (1979–80), ''After Spring Rain'' (1981–82) and ''From the Shadow of the Mountain'' (2001), the
piano quintet In classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly a string quartet (i.e., two violins, viola, and cello). The term also refers to the group of musicians that plays a pian ...
''Midsummer Variations'' (1985), the
piano quartet A piano quartet is a chamber music composition for piano and three other instruments, or a musical ensemble comprising such instruments. Those other instruments are usually a string trio consisting of a violin, viola and cello. Piano quartets for ...
''They Who Hunger'' (1989), and the
piano trio A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music. The term can also refer to a group of m ...
''They That Mourn'' (2002), the last in memoriam 9/11. In 2012 cellist Rhonda Rider premiered his solo cello work ''The Silence at Yuma Point'', part of a commissioning project of pieces inspired by the Grand Canyon (where Swafford has been a frequent hiker). His compositional awards include a
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 ...
Composer Grant, two Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fellowships, and a Tanglewood Fellowship. His work is published by Peermusic Classical and
Meridian Records Meridian Records is a British independent record label based in London. Having been founded in 1977, Meridian has celebrated more than a third of a century of recording classical music in its well regarded 'natural sound'. Meridian has tradit ...
.


Awards and honors

*1997 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, ''Charles Ives: A Life With Music''


Bibliography

* * * * * *


References


External links

*
Profile from Tufts University"'Missa Solemnis', a Divine Bit of Beethoven"
NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
commentary by Swafford {{DEFAULTSORT:Swafford, Jan 1946 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American male classical composers American classical composers 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers American music critics Harvard University alumni Yale School of Music alumni Tufts University faculty American biographers Pupils of Earl Kim Pupils of Jacob Druckman 21st-century American composers 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians American male biographers 20th-century American biographers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American musicologists 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American musicologists Brahms scholars Beethoven scholars Mozart scholars