Michael Rosenzweig, born 1951 in Cape Town, South Africa, is a composer, conductor, choral trainer and director, multi-instrumentalist and jazz musician.[1]
Education
Merton Barrow provided him a thorough practical grounding as a performer. He played guitar in Merton Barrow's ensemble, the Jazz Workshop for many years.
He then studied composition with Donald Martino at New England Conservatory of Music
He holds the only internal London University master's degree conferred without undergraduate degree or A-levels. Michael Rosenzweig is acclaimed as one of two notable students of both Jack Beeson, the only American to study composition with Bartok, and of Chou Wen-chung, the editor of French-born American composer Edgard Varese's scores. He studied with both of them while on full scholarship and stipend from Columbia University's doctoral programme. [2][3]
Conducting
While assistant at the Berliner Konzertchor, he was music director of their youth choir. He conducted their Berlin Philharmonie debut. He conducted the Blacher Ensemble, the new music ensemble from the Berlin Hochschule der Kunste in their international venue debut. He also conducted Sinfonietta Berlin, his own chamber orchestra in major venues and festivals. The orchestra performed both standard repertoire and contemporary music, including premieres of his own music.
Maestro Michael Rosenzweig has established himself over more than forty years as a composer of note, having won many major prizes and awards, the highest being the DAAD Berliner Kunstler Fellowship in 1990, an award given to composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Roger Sessions, Elliott Carter, Krzysztof Penderecki, Luigi Dallapiccola, Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, Alberto Ginastera, and others of this eminence. He received this award at age 39. He was the youngest recipient of this award.[10][11]
He has also conducted the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra.[12]
He has over twenty successfully performed works, nineteen commissions, and four that have won important awards.
His other awards include the Greater London Arts Council Young Composer's Award and the Gaudeamus Foundation, won two years running, coming both first and second in the first year.
[13]
Commissioners include the London Sinfonietta, the Arditti Quartet, State Philharmonic of Iasi, Divertimenti String Orchestra and BBC Radio 3. Performers include the RLPO, Arditti Quartet, London Sinfonietta, and the State Philharmonic of Iasi.
Works have been commissioned by the BBC, the London Sinfonietta,[14] the Divertimenti String Orchestra, and Nina Beilina.
Rosenzweig's String Quartet No. 2 (1989) was commissioned in October 1988, by the BBC for the Arditti Quartet and delivered in April 1989. It was first performed and recorded in June 1995, and broadcast by the BBC Radio 3 on 3 January 2009.[15][16]
^ abcdMellers, Wilfrid; Dreyer, Martin (1986), "Music New and Old: Two Festivals Considered", The Musical Times, 127 (1722): 494–498, doi:10.2307/964592, JSTOR964592
^Michael Kennedy, The Daily Telegraph 25 November 1985
^Bryan Northcott, The Sunday Telegraph 12 January 1985
