![Nathaniel Stookey at the 2015 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Nathaniel_Stookey_at_the_2015_Cabrillo_Festival_of_Contemporary_Music.jpg)
Nathaniel Stookey (born 1970, San Francisco, California) is an American
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
and musician.
Education
Stookey is the son of Richard Phelps Stookey, an attorney and novelist, and Martha Milton Stookey, an actor, stage director, and teacher. Both parents came from musical families: Martha's father was an Army bugler and cornet player, and Richard's grandparents were church and barn-dance musicians whose descendants include
Noel Paul Stookey
Noel Paul Stookey (born December 30, 1937) is an American singer-songwriter who was famous for being in the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary; however, he has been known by his first name, Noel, throughout his life. Nowadays, he continues to w ...
of the folk trio
Peter, Paul & Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's reperto ...
. Stookey spent his early childhood in the
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
village of
Banca
Banca may refer to:
Places
* Bangka Island, an island lying east of Sumatra, part of Indonesia
* Banca, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a commune of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques ''département'', France
* Banca, Tasmania, a locality in Tasmania, Australia
* ...
. He attended
French American International School and
Lowell High School in San Francisco and
Lycée Hoche
The Lycée Hoche is a public secondary school located in Versailles, France. Formerly, it had been a nunnery founded by French queen Marie Leszczyńska. However, after the French Revolution, it became a school in 1803. In 1888, the school was nam ...
in
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
, France.
He began violin study at age 5 with Anna Teksler in San Francisco, continuing with Malgorzata Rouger at the
École Normale de Musique de Paris
The École Normale de Musique de Paris "Alfred Cortot" (ENMP) is a leading conservatoire located in Paris, Île-de-France, France. At the time of the school's foundation in 1919 by Auguste Mangeot, Alfred Cortot. The term ''école normale'' (Engl ...
, and with
Daniel Kobialka
Daniel Kobialka (November 19, 1943 – January 18, 2021) was an American violinist, composer, and music entrepreneur.
Biography
Kobialka studied violin at the Hartt College of Music. Kobialka was the principal second violinist with the San Fran ...
of the
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Fr ...
. As a student, he played violin and viola with the
San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra
The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) is the youth orchestra of the San Francisco Symphony. The SFSYO performs an annual concert series and has made several recordings. The orchestra rehearses in Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, di ...
and sang in the chorus of
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) is an American orchestra based in San Francisco. PBO is dedicated to historically informed performance of Baroque, Classical and early Romantic music on original instruments. The orchestra performs its su ...
. He studied music theory with Donald Galfond and took his first composition lessons from
Tom Constanten
Tom Constanten (born March 19, 1944) is an American keyboardist, best known for playing with Grateful Dead from 1968 to 1970, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
Biography
Early career
Born in Long Branch, N ...
of the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...
at the San Francisco Community Music Center. He attended the
Cleveland Institute of Music
The Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) is a private music conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1920 by Ernest Bloch, it enrolls 325 students in the conservatory and approximately 1,500 students in the preparatory and continuing educatio ...
,
San Francisco City College
City College of San Francisco (CCSF or City College) is a public community college in San Francisco, California. Founded as a junior college in 1935, the college plays an important local role, annually enrolling as many as one in nine San Franci ...
, the
University of California, 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 u ...
(B.A. 1992),
George Benjamin's composition seminars for the
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...
, and
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
(Ph.D 2003), where he was a Mary Duke Biddle Fellow and won the Klenz Prize for Composition in his first year of graduate study. Stookey's principal composition teachers were
Peter Scott Lewis,
Donald Erb
Donald Erb (January 17, 1927 – August 12, 2008) was an American composer best known for large orchestral works such as Concerto for Brass and Orchestra and ''Ritual Observances''.
Early years
Erb was born in Youngstown, Ohio, graduated ...
,
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 ...
,
Cindy Cox,
, and
Scott Lindroth
Scott Allen Lindroth (born 1958) is an American composer and teacher based near Durham, North Carolina.
Lindroth joined the faculty of Duke University in 1990, where he is the Vice-Provost for the Arts and the Kevin D. Gorter Associate Professo ...
.
Orchestral music
Stookey was first commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony at age 17.
He has held composer residencies with the
Hallé Orchestra, during the music directorship of
Kent Nagano
Kent George Nagano GOQ, MSM (born November 22, 1951) is an American conductor and opera administrator. Since 2015, he has been Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and was Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 20 ...
, and with the
North Carolina Symphony
The North Carolina Symphony (NCS) is an American orchestra based in Raleigh, North Carolina, with sixty-six full-time musicians. The orchestra performs in Meymandi Concert Hall and performs occasionally with the Carolina Ballet and the Opera Com ...
from 2000-2003, a partnership that resulted in over 60 performances of eight works, including ''Out of the Everywhere'' (2003) for large orchestra.
In 2006, the San Francisco Symphony commissioned, premiered and recorded ''
The Composer is Dead
''The Composer Is Dead'' is a 2009 composition for narrator and orchestra, released both as a musical recording and as a book with a CD insert, with text by Lemony Snicket, music by Nathaniel Stookey, and illustrations by Carson Ellis. It is a w ...
'' (2006), a guide to the orchestra with text by
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American author Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970). Handler has published several children's books under the name, most notably ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'', which has sold over 60 million copies and s ...
. He has narrated performances of ''The Composer is Dead'', in English as well as Spanish. He also co-authored the Spanish and French translations of Lemony Snicket's text for ''The Composer is Dead''. In 2010, the
NDR Sinfonieorchester
The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (german: NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester) is a German radio orchestra. Affiliated with the ''Norddeutscher Rundfunk'' (NDR; North German Broadcasting), the orchestra is based at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Ge ...
and
Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach (; born 20 February 1940) is a German pianist and conductor.
Early life
Eschenbach was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). His parents were Margarethe (née Jaross) and Heribert Ringmann. He was orphaned durin ...
premiered Stookey's ''Mahlerwerk'' (2010) at the final concert of the centennial "Mahler in Hamburg" Festival.
Stookey has a long-standing musical relationship with the San Francisco Symphony and was one of the original curators of SoundBox, for which he created ''YTTE'' (2016), his third commissioned work for the orchestra. Other orchestral works include the song cycles ''Zipperz'' (2008) and ''Into the Bright Lights'' (2009) as well as several shorter works: ''Big Bang'' (2000), ''Wide as Skies'' (2003) and ''GO'' (2012).
Vocal and theatrical music
Stookey's earliest published composition was a contribution to the Basque-language hymnal, ''Meza Abestiak'', a gift for the Benedictine monastery of
Lazkao :''See Lazcano (disambiguation) (a variant form) for people with this surname.''
Lazkao ( es, Lazcano) is a town and municipality located in the Goierri region of the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country.
Location
Lazkao is located in ...
, where the composer lived and worked in 1990.
''For thy sweet love'' (1993) for chamber chorus and organ and other early works were published by PRB Productions before being acquired by G. Schirmer/AMP in 2015.
In 2008,
Manoel Felciano
Manoel Felciano (born November 12, 1970) is an American actor, singer, and songwriter.
Career
He received a humanities degree from Yale University. Felciano attended the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, ...
, Eisa Davis, and the
Oakland Symphony
The Oakland Symphony Orchestra Association (OSOA) was a professional regional symphony orchestra in Oakland, California, from 1933 to 1986. In 1986 the symphony filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It is succeeded by the Oakland East Bay Symphony (OEBS ...
conducted by
Michael Morgan premiered ''Zipperz'' (2008) for two pop singers and orchestra, with texts by Dan Harder. In 2009,
Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade OAL (born June 1, 1945) is a semi-retired American opera singer. Since her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1970, she has performed in operas, musicals, concerts and recitals in venues throughout the world, including La Scala, th ...
launched her farewell tour with Stookey's ''Into the Bright Lights'' (2009) for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, a setting of von Stade's own reflections on singing and aging.
Zheng Cao
Zheng Cao (July 9, 1966February 21, 2013) was a Chinese-born, American operatic mezzo-soprano known for her signature role of Suzuki in '' Madama Butterfly''. She performed this role with opera companies such as San Francisco Opera, Grand Th ...
, in her final concert appearances, substituted for von Stade in the work's U.S. premiere. Stookey created the score for
John Doyle's 2010 production of
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
's ''
Caucasian Chalk Circle
''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' (german: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a bet ...
'' at the
American Conservatory Theater
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a nonprofit theater company in San Francisco, California, United States, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. It also has an attached acting school.
History
The Ameri ...
(A.C.T.) in San Francisco. His monodrama ''Ivonne'' (2012) for soprano and chamber ensemble, with texts by Jerre Dye, was commissioned by
Opera Memphis
Opera Memphis is a Memphis, Tennessee non-profit arts organization chartered in 1956 by a group of Memphians interested in producing regional opera. Charter signatories included noted Memphians Philip Belz and Walter Chandler. Early productions c ...
as part of the Ghosts of Crosstown project and featured on
Opera America __NOTOC__
Opera America, styled OPERA America, is a New York-based service organization promoting the creation, presentation, and enjoyment of opera in the United States. Almost all professional opera companies and some semi-professional companies i ...
's 2015 national showcase at
Wolf Trap
A wolf trap (Spanish ''lobera'', Italian ''luparia'') was a chase ending in a pit with trapdoor and stakes used by beaters in hunting wolves in medieval Europe.Towards a History of the Basque Language José Ignacio Hualde, Joseba A. Lakarra, Rob ...
.
Chamber music
Himself a violinist and violist, Stookey has continued to write chamber music throughout his career. Strings Magazine profiled him in 2009 as one of the "Next Generation of String Composers." The
Lindsay Quartet
The Lindsay String Quartet (or The Lindsays) was a British string quartet from 1965 to 2005.
History
The quartet first performed at the Royal Academy of Music in 1965 to compete for a prize and set out to make the string quartets of Bartók a ...
featured Stookey's String Quartet No. 1 (1998), dedicated to them, on their 40th anniversary tour of North America in 2004. String Quartet No. 2 – ''Musée Mécanique'' (2002) was commissioned and recorded by the Ciompi Quartet. String Quartet No. 3 – ''
The Mezzanine
''The Mezzanine'' (1988) is the first novel by American writer Nicholson Baker. It narrates what goes through a man's mind during a modern lunch break.
Concept
On the surface, the novel deals with a man's lunchtime trip up an escalator in the mez ...
'' (2012), inspired by
Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker (born January 7, 1957) is an American novelist and essayist. His fiction generally de-emphasizes narrative in favor of careful description and characterization. His early novels such as ''The Mezzanine'' and ''Room Temperature'' we ...
's eponymous book, was commissioned by
Kronos Quartet
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...
and featured at the 2015
Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is an annual Festival dedicated to contemporary symphonic music by living composers. The music director since 2017 has been Cristian Măcelaru. According to Jesse Rosen, CEO of the League of American Orc ...
, where Stookey and Kronos were in residence together.
Additional chamber works include Piano Trio No. 1 (2009) for The Lee Trio, ''Fling'' (2005) for flute and string trio (commissioned by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble), ''Above the Thomas Gate'' (2001) for piano trio (commissioned by the Mallarmé Chamber Players), ''Tame Me'' (1995) for piano and prepared piano (commissioned by the Hallé Concerts Society), and ''Sonatina for Sam'' (1992) (see
Alt, pop, dance, and Junk).
''Where Every Verse is Filled with Grief'' (2009) for solo violin, an arrangement of the second movement of
Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (russian: Альфре́д Га́рриевич Шни́тке, link=no, Alfred Garriyevich Shnitke; 24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Russian composer of Jewish-German descent. Among the most performed and re ...
's Concerto for Choir, was commissioned by Kunst-Stoff for choreography by Yannis Adoniou.
Alt, pop, dance, and junk
Stookey has worked often in San Francisco's experimental music scene and his work uses influences outside of classical boundaries.<> Among his early collaborators was the crossover cellist Sam Bass (of the bands
Deadweight, Loop!Station and
Les Claypool
Leslie Edward Claypool (born September 29, 1963) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, filmmaker, and author. He is best known as the founder, lead singer, bassist, primary songwriter, and only continuous member of the ro ...
's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade) for whom Stookey wrote both his "opus 1" ''Sonatina for Sam'' (1992) and the song ''Hard Up'' (2011).
Stookey composed and recorded the string introduction to the song ''Soothsayer'' (2007) on
The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta is an American progressive rock band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, producer, direction) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals, lyrics), whose partnership forms ...
's album ''
The Bedlam in Goliath
''The Bedlam in Goliath'' is the fourth studio album by American progressive rock band the Mars Volta, released on January 29, 2008, on Gold Standard Laboratories and Universal Motown Records. Produced by guitarist and songwriter Omar Rodríguez-L ...
''. In the same year, he created ''Junkestra'' (2007) for an orchestra of instruments he built from objects scavenged from the city dump, and has performed on the musical saw in this work. That work was performed in vacant warehouses and public squares before being taken up by the San Francisco Symphony and other classical presenters. Its 2010 release on
Innova Recordings
Innova Recordings is the independent record label of the non-profit American Composers Forum based in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1982 to document the winners of the McKnight Fellowship offered by its parent organization, the Minneso ...
includes ''Junkestra Dance Mix'' (2010), also by Stookey. His composition ''Mahlerwerk'' (2011) reorders hundreds of fragments of Mahler symphonies. The work is dedicated to composer Alfred Schnittke, who coined the term
polystylist to describe composers who freely combine disparate elements.
''Nobody Suffers Like We Do'' (2009), a drinking song inspired by the sounds of a convenience-store cash register, with words by
Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970) is an American author, musician, screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is best known for his children's book series ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' and ''All the Wrong Questions ...
, was commissioned and recorded by the
Harvard Din & Tonics
The Harvard Din & Tonics (or "the Dins") are a signature, five-part jazz a cappella group from Harvard University, founded in 1979.
History
The group was founded in April 1979 as a public service project of the Phillips Brooks House Associati ...
in commemoration of their 30th anniversary season.
Residencies, teaching, publication
During his residencies with the Hallé Orchestra and North Carolina Symphony, Stookey taught at the
University of Sheffield
, mottoeng = To discover the causes of things
, established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions:
– Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield
, type = Pu ...
and the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
respectively. As composer-in-residence with
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 ...
-affiliate
WUNC-FM
WUNC (91.5 MHz) is a listener-supported public radio station, serving the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. It is licensed to Chapel Hill and is operated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On weekdays, WUNC carries N ...
in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...
, he created and hosted The Composers-in-Context Series, which included both live and broadcast performances of works by living composers in the context of their musical influences. Stookey has also been composer-in-residence at the
New Hampshire Music Festival
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
, the Walden School,
the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music,
and the Eastern Sierra Symphony. A retrospective of his output, commemorating his years in North Carolina, was presented by the School of Music of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
Stookey sometimes plays the
musical saw
A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is a hand saw used as a musical instrument. Capable of continuous glissando (portamento), the sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin. The musical saw is classified as a plaque f ...
in ''Junkestra'' (2007) and the OOVE (a unique electroacoustic instrument by Oliver DiCicco) in ''YTTE'' (2016).
Stookey's music is published under exclusive contract by
G. Schirmer/A.M.P. (
Music Sales Group
Wise Music Group is a global music publisher, with headquarters in Berners Street, London. In February 2020, Wise Music Group changed its name from The Music Sales Group.
In 2014 Wise Music Group (as The Music Sales Group) acquired French cla ...
) of New York and London. Some works are distributed in print by
Hal Leonard Corporation
Hal Leonard LLC (formerly Hal Leonard Corporation) is an American music publishing and distribution company founded in Winona, Minnesota, by Harold "Hal" Edstrom, his brother, Everett "Leonard" Edstrom, and fellow musician Roger Busdicker. Curre ...
.
Recordings
Awards and recognition
* Hallé Orchestra Composition Fellowship, Manchester, England 1993-96
* Mary Duke Biddle Fellowship, Duke University 1998
* Klenz Prize for ''Double'' 1999
* Meet The Composer New Residencies Award 2000-3
References
External links
Music Sales Classical page on Nathaniel Stookey*
ttp://seanmarkey.net/articles/junkestra/ Sean Markey, 'The Maestro of Junk'. Sean Markey websiteLos Angeles Philharmonic biography on Nathaniel Stookey"Notes on Music at 'Obsession and Creation'", SoundBox website, 21 April 2016Duke University alumni page on Nathaniel StookeyAlbany Records page on album of Nathaniel Stookey's music, TROY717'San Francisco Symphony's new experimental performance venue, SoundBox, opens to critical acclaim'. Shuman Associates agency, 19 December 2014Blair Sanderson, review of Albany Records TROY717, AllMusic pageNew England Conservatory page on ''Mahler/werk''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stookey, Nathaniel
1970 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century classical composers
21st-century American composers
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century classical composers
Academics of the University of Sheffield
Alumni of the Royal College of Music
American classical composers
American male classical composers
American opera composers
Classical musicians from California
Cleveland Institute of Music alumni
Duke University alumni
Living people
Male opera composers
Musicians from San Francisco
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty