New American Works: 1995

About the Composers:

Aaron Jay Kernis was born in Philadelphia in 1960. Not until age 12 did he become serious about music, first teaching himself piano, and in the following year, composition. He continued his musical studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of music, the Manhattan School of Music, Yale School of Music and the American Academy in Rome, working with composers as diverse as John Adams, Charles Wuorinen, Jacob Druckman and Harrison Birtwhistle. Kernis received national acclaim for his first orchestral work, Dream of the Morning Sky, premiered by the New York Philharmonic at the 1983 Horizons Festival.

Christoper Berg’s first compositions, written at 20, were songs on Gertrude Stein texts. His many songs, especially those on poems of Frank O’Hara, are widely performed by such distinguished singers as Janice Felty, Paul Sperry, William Sharp, and Christopher Trakas. Fanfare magazine, in reviewing the Sperry recording of O’Hara songs, called Berg “an American Hugo Wolf.” Recent premieres include two string quartets (on with voice), a cycle on Nabakov poems, and a piano fantasy. Earlier works include a cantata, Distant Episodes, based on an episode of the Arabian Nights and the orchestral song cycle, Not Waving but Drowning, on poems of Stevie Smith. Recordings of his songs are available on the Opus one, Musical heritage Society, MusicMasters and Albany record labels. Mr. Berg also composes for the theater: his musical, Back Home, with book by Ron Sproat and lyrics by Fran Evans, was produced last summer at the new Hope Theater Festival. Current projects include a chamber opera about Karen Silkwood, with libretto by the late playwright Robert Chesley. Mer. Berg has been the recipient of two NEA grants, as well as other grants and awards from Meet the Composer, the American music Center, the Yaddo Foundation and the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music.

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