Etchings 2010 Resident Composers
Dominique Schafer - Artistic Director
A native of Fribourg, Switzerland, Dominique Schafer, recently awarded a year-long Swiss fellowship to reside at the Atelier Jean Tinguely of the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, is a composer whose breadth of musical expression encompasses both the acoustic instrumentations and the electro-acoustic media. While based in Boston after having lived in Los Angeles for many years, Dominique’s music has been performed in the USA, Asia, Latin America and Europe by ensembles and performers such as the Arditti String Quartet, Dinosaur Annex Ensemble, Ensemble Fa, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Talea Ensemble, Frances Marie Uitti (cello solo piece played with two bows), Alarm will Sound, the Callithumpian Consort, Orchestre National de Lorraine (France), E-Mex ensemble (Germany), Modern Art Sextet, Jeremias Schwarzer, and the California EAR Unit, and at festivals such as Musica Nova Finland, June in Buffalo, and Festival Archipel Geneva, Switzerland.
Dominique’s compositions have received international recognition, and he is the recipient of numerous awards, which include the Adelbert Sprague Composition Award, George Arthur Knight Composition Prize, twice regional winner of the ASCAP/SCI commission competition, and second prize of the Kempten Orchesterverein composition competition in Germany, and grants from the American Music Center. He was also a finalist of the Queen Marie José International Composition Competition, of the 33rd and 36th International Competition in Electroacoustic Music (Trivium) Bourges, France, and of the Fifth Seoul International Competition for Composers. At Festival Archipel Geneva, Dominique’s Ashes in the Air II for tenor recorder and electronics, a work composed to be projected into an eight-channel surround space, was premiered. The saxophone and percussion duo piece Triplex Unity was released by the Yesaroun’ Duo on CD. Dominique has been a repeat participant at the Acanthes summer festival in France where he studied electronic music led by the atelier d'informatique musical (IRCAM) in 2004, and where his chamber orchestra pieceAm Rande des Schattens was premiered in 2005. He has also participated in the composition courses led by Karlheinz Stockhausen in Kürten, Germany. In 2006 Dominique formally presented his work at the Darmstadt International Courses for New Music.
Dominique holds a PhD degree in Composition from Harvard University, and BA and MA in Composition from University of California, Los Angeles. His primary mentors in composition include Paul Reale, Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands, Magnus Lindberg, Ian Krouse, Julian Anderson, Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough, and Chaya Czernowin. Other studies include electronic music (with Hans Tutschku), orchestration (with Joshua Fineberg), jazz performance (with Max Jendly), and film score and conducting (with Jerry Goldsmith). An avid advocate for teaching and communicating knowledge to young students, Dominique was awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching at Harvard University two years in a row. In 2010 he joined the faculty of the University of Rhode Island Music Department, where he has been teaching music theory, aural skills and composition. Aside from composing and teaching, Dominique is the co-artistic director of the New York- and Boston-based ensemble ECCE (East Coast Contemporary Ensemble). His current projects include a commissioned work for the Taipei Chinese Orchestra (premier forthcoming in May, 2012 in Taiwan) and another work for the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society concert series in March, 2012.
John Aylward - Artistic Director
John Aylward’s music has been praised for its youthful energy and precision. Aylward’s debut album, featuring conductor Matthias Pintscher and soprano Jo Ellen Miller, will be released by Albany Records this spring. Aylward’s work entertains experimental harmonic and textural concepts while not sacrificing rigorous technique, lyricism or rhythmic vitality. Aylward’s music has been performed within the U.S and abroad by numerous ensembles including the New York New Music Ensemble, The East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, The Lydian String Quartet, Third Angle, The Bard Symphony Orchestra, Juventas, and The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. His work has also been championed by internationally touring soloists Chris Finkel, Steven Gosling, Christopher Oldfather, Mark Holloway, Curtis Macomber, Samuel Solomon, Elizabeth Keusch, Karina Sabac and Daria Binkowski.
Aylward has received grants and awards for his compositions from numerous national institutions including the MacDowell Colony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Society of Composers. In 2007, Aylward won the Composition Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music. In 2010, he was chosen as a Composer Apprentice by the National Centre for the Arts, Ottowa.
As a pianist, Aylward regularly performs contemporary music worldwide. Recent concert dates include Harvard’s Paine Hall, The Collis Center at Dartmouth, The American Composers Forum in Washington, DC, the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, and Distler Hall at Tufts University.
In 2005, John began a group for contemporary music: the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble. In 2009, the group became a not-for-profit 501(c)3 corporation dedicated to presenting the most adventuresome new music worldwide. One of Aylward’s first initiatives for the group was to establish an international music festival. The Etchings Festival, now in its 3rd season, has attracted professional and student musicians from across the US and abroad and has already premiered numerous new works of contemporary music. The festival, held in Auvillar, France, has also attracted acclaim for its masterclasses and lessons, taught by guest composers such as David Rakowski, Fabien Levy and Louis Karchin.
In addition to composition and performance, Aylward is also an avid researcher in 20th Century American music. The spring 2010 edition of Perspectives of New Music features Aylward’s last research on Elliott Carter’s recent works. Other presentations on Elliott Carter’s music have been at the 2008 New England Conference of Music Theory, the 2008 American Innovator’s Series, and a colloquium at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, where Aylward was a fellow during the summers of 2010 and 2008. In 2011, the Sacher Stiftung’s Mitteilungen will publish an upcoming article.
Aylward is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Clark University in Massachusetts. Before his post at Clark, Aylward taught at Tufts University and at Brandeis University. John lives in Boston, Massachusetts and is originally from Tucson, Arizona.
