Rodney Sharman (born 24 May 1958) is a Canadian

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 flutist based in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

. His music has been performed in over 30 countries worldwide. He has won several international and national awards, including First Prize in the 1984 CBC Competition for Young Composers. His chamber opera, Elsewhereless, a collaboration with

Atom Egoyan Atom Egoyan (; hy, Աթոմ Եղոյեան, translit=Atom Yeghoyan; born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian filmmaker. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Egoyan m ...

, premiered in 1998 and has been staged 35 times internationally.

Biography

Sharman earned degrees from the University of Victoria School of Music (Victoria, B.C.) and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (Freiburg, Germany). In May 1991, he earned a PhD from the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

. Sharman studied under

Murray Adaskin Murray Adaskin, (March 28, 1906 – May 6, 2002) was a Toronto-born Canadian violinist, composer, conductor and teacher. After playing violin with a band, he studied composition and became the director of the Music department of the University of ...

Rudolf Komorous Rudolf Komorous (born 8 December 1931, Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech-born Canadian composer. His works include ''Twenty-Three Poems about Horses'' (1978), based on the poetry of Li Ho Li He ( – ) was a Chinese poet of the mid-Tang dyn ...

Brian Ferneyhough Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

David Felder David Felder (born November 27, 1953) is an American composer and academic who was a SUNY Distinguished Professor at the University at Buffalo until his retirement in 2022. He was also the director of both the June in Buffalo Festival and the Rob ...

Frederic Rzewski Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. His major compositions, which often incorporate social an ...

Louis Andriessen Louis Joseph Andriessen (; 6 June 1939 – 1 July 2021) was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Although ...

and Lucas Foss. Sharman was guest composer at the

Institute of Sonology The Institute of Sonology is an education and research center for electronic music and computer music based at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in the Netherlands. Background The institute was founded at Utrecht University in 1960 under the n ...

(Utrecht, Netherlands) in 1983-84. He taught at Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of British Columbia School of Music, the School for the Contemporary Arts and Faculty of Graduate Liberal Studies,

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...

. Sharman was the Vancouver Symphony’s (VSO) Composer-in-Residence from 1997 to 2000 and its Composer/Music Advisor from 2000 to 2001. He was Composer-in-Residence of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada in 2004, and he was Composer-in-Residence of the Victoria Symphony 2008-2010. The Canadian Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) elected him President from 1991-95. Canadian League of Composers (CLC) elected Sharman President from 1993-98. He has served on the CLC Council from 1988 to 1999. In 1990, Sharman was awarded the Kranichsteiner Music Prize at the Darmstadt summer courses in Germany.

Style

Sharman's music is notable for its heavy use of extended techniques and exploration of new timbres. He often writes for uncommon instruments or unusual ensembles. He is also known for his opera transcriptions, cabaret songs, and music for harp.

Selected works

* ''The Proximity of Mars'' (1988) * ''In Changing Light'' (1995) * ''Elsewhereless'' (1998) * ''Scarlattiana'' (1999) * ''Four Seasons, One Tree'' (2001) * ''The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa'' (2005) * ''Departures'' (2008)

References

External links

RodneySharman.com

Personal Web Page, accessed 16 February 2010Canadian Music Centre, accessed 31 July 2018
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharman, Rodney 1958 births 21st-century classical composers 20th-century classical composers Canadian classical composers Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Pupils of Louis Andriessen Canadian male classical composers 20th-century Canadian composers 20th-century Canadian male musicians 21st-century Canadian male musicians