Music Welcomes Composer Lowell Liebermann for Virtual Masterclasses

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Lowell Liebermann

The Department of Music hosts regarded American composer Lowell Liebermann for two virtual masterclass events on Tuesday, March 30. Liebermann is one of America's most prolific living composers and is on faculty at the Mannes School of Music at The New School in New York City.

Liebermann will give a composer's masterclass with students of Robert Mueller at 3:30 p.m. Liebermann will review and hear compositions by U of A music students to provide comments and suggestions. At 6 p.m., LIebermann will have a masterclass for U of A music majors performing his works for piano.

Both events are free and open to the public, but registration is required. Click the links below to register, follow-up emails are sent with links to the event.

3:30 p.m. — March 30 Composition Masterclass
6:00 p.m. — March 30 Piano Masterclass

About Lowell Liebermann: Lowell Liebermann is one of America's most frequently performed and recorded living composers. He has written more than 130 works in all genres, several of which have gone on to become standard repertoire for their instruments, such as his Sonata for Flute and Piano and Gargoyles for piano, each of which have been recorded more than 20 times on CD. He has been commissioned by a wide array of ensembles and instrumentalists, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Emerson Quartet and flutist Sir James Galway. His full-length ballet Frankenstein was co-commissioned by London's Royal Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet and has been released on Blu-Ray and DVD. Liebermann has written two full-length operas, both enthusiastically received at their premieres: The Picture of Dorian Gray, the first American opera commissioned and premiered by l'Opéra deMonte-Carlo, and Miss Lonelyhearts, after the novel by Nathanael West, commissioned by the Juilliard School to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

Liebermann served as composer-in-residence for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for four years, a role he also pursued with the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan; the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and many other organizations. He joined the composition faculty of Mannes School of Music of the New School in 2012, where he founded the Mannes American Composers Ensemble, devoted to performing works of living American composers. He was appointed head of Mannes's composition department the following year.

Among his many awards are a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awards from ASCAP and BMI and a Grammy nomination. He was the first winner of the Van Cliburn Invitational Composers Competition, and in 2014 became the inaugural recipient of the Virgil Thomson Award for vocal composition.