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Jeremy Beck

“Jeremy Beck is Exhibit A in classical music’s defense against the charge of being out of touch.” The best new recordings from North America - Gramophone (June 2006)

Jeremy Beck’s most recent opera, Review, with a libretto by Patricia Marx, was one of three finalists in the 2010 National Opera Association’s New Chamber Opera Competition. Peabody Opera included it in its 2011-2012 season and it was also included in a program of scenes at the College Music Society's 2011 annual convention in Richmond, VA. Check out a video of a performance by Peabody Opera. Review was previously included in the 2009 OPERA America and Houston Grand Opera New Works Sampler. Following that successful showcase, Review was then produced by the Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston and later was given its New York premiere by the Center for Contemporary Opera. Review also has been produced at Bucknell College, James Madison University, the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Oklahoma State University-Stillwater (with orchestra).

Beck's previous opera, The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel, was named by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one of the top ten "Best Classical" events in Pittsburgh for the year 2001, while the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review hailed the work at its premiere as "superb ... more successful compositionally ... than many new works seen at major opera houses." Check out some video clips of the opera here.

A dramatic and lyrical composer of works for varying chamber, orchestral and vocal forces, Jeremy Beck’s most recent opera, Review, was named one of three finalists in the National Opera Association’s 2010 New Chamber Opera Competition. Review was previously included in the spring 2009 OPERA America and Houston Grand Opera New Works Sampler. Following that successful showcase, Review was then produced by the Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston in the fall of 2009 and later was given its New York premiere by the Center for Contemporary Opera in February, 2010.

About Beck’s 2008 CD of chamber music, Never Final, Never Gone (innova 696), one critic described Beck as “an original voice celebrating music. Without self-consciousness, without paralyzing abstraction, Beck reminds us that music is movement, physically and emotionally.”

Beck’s first two innova CD’s were included by Gramophone in its June 2006 Reviews: The best new recordings from North America. pause and feel and hark (innova 650), released in 2006, features some of his chamber music, including Black Water for soprano and piano. A monodrama based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, reviewers have found Black Water “enthralling … stunning in its intensity” while Oates herself has written of her “admiration for [this] beautiful and haunting composition.”

Reviews of Beck’s Wave (innova 612) -- a Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra CD devoted to his music and released in 2004 -- describe his Sinfonietta for string orchestra as “harmonically inventive, thoroughly engaging ... sinewy and gorgeous” and Death of a Little Girl with Doves for soprano and orchestra as displaying “imperious melodic confidence [and] fluent emotional command.” At its world premiere, this operatic soliloquy based on the life of sculptor Camille Claudel was appraised as flowing “seamlessly through the use of a dazzling variety of instrumental and vocal color … a fresh, exciting piece by a major talent.”

In addition, Beck’s opera The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel was named by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one of the Top Ten Cultural Events in Pittsburgh for the year 2001, while the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review hailed the work at its premiere as “superb ... more successful compositionally ... than many new works seen at major opera houses.” Another of his operas, The Highway, was presented by New York City Opera as a part of that company’s VOX series in 2000; at the premiere of this opera at Yale University, the New Haven Register declared that Beck’s “handling of dramatic relationships and superimposed time was masterful.”

Excerpts from another of his operas, The Highway, were presented by New York City Opera as a part of that company's VOX series in May of 2000; following a presentation of this opera at Yale, the New Haven Register declared that Beck's "handling of dramatic relationships and superimposed time was masterful."

Beck’s music has been performed internationally and has earned awards, grants and honors from the arts councils of Iowa, California and Kentucky, American Composers Orchestra, Millay Colony for the Arts, Wellesley Composers Conference, Oregon Bach Festival, and the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Composers Forum. Beck holds degrees in composition from the Yale School of Music (DMA, MMA), Duke University (MA) and the Mannes College of Music (BS), as well as a law degree from the University of Louisville.

For more Information visit www.BeckMusic.org

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