Composer
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Jeffrey Mumford Composer |
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1955, composer Jeffrey Mumford has received numerous fellowships, grants, awards and commissions.
Awards include the "Academy Award in Music" from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Fellowship to the Composers' Conference, Johnson, Vermont and an ASCAP Aaron Copland Scholarship. He was also the winner of the inaugural National Black Arts Festival/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition.
Other grants have been awarded by the Ohio Arts Council, Oberlin College, the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities (funded through the NEA), the Minnesota Composers' Forum, the American Music Center, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Meet the Composer, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music Inc., the ASCAP Foundation, and the University of California.
Mumford's most notable commissions include those from violinist Ole Bohn, the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt (Vienna), the Network for New Music, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a consortium of presenters consisting of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Chamber Music Columbus (OH.) and Omus Hirshbein (New York) (for the Pacifica Quartet and pianist Amy Dissanayake), Cleveland radio station WCLV, violist Wendy Richman, the Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust (for the Corigliano Quartet), a consortium of presenters consisting of the Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.), Miller Theatre (New York) and the Schubert Club (St. Paul, MN.) (for pianist Margaret Kampmeier), the Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, D.C. and Philip Berlin, Sonia and Louis Rothschild (for the Opus 3 Trio), the Theatre Chamber Players, the Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA program (for the CORE Ensemble), the National Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati radio station WGUC, 'cellist Joshua Gordon, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation , the Fromm Music Foundation, the Amphion Foundation (for the Da Capo Chamber Players), the New York New Music Ensemble, the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress, the Aspen Wind Quintet, and 'cellist Fred Sherry.
Mumford's works have been extensively performed both in the United States and abroad, including Miller Theatre, the Library of Congress, the Aspen Music Festival, the Bang On A Can Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, San Migel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, London's Purcell Room, Finland's prestigious Helsinki Festival, the Musica nel Nostro Tempo Festival, in Milan and the Musikverein in Vienna. His works have been performed by such major orchestras as the National, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the American Composers' Orchestra. His chamber works have been performed by major ensembles such as the Pacifica, Corigliano, Maia and Borromeo Quartets, the Mann Duo, the CORE Ensemble, the Empyrean Ensemble, the Amelia Piano Trio, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Ensemble, Voices of Change, the New Music Consort, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Aspen Wind Quintet, the Group for Contemporary Music, the Da Capo Chamber Players. Among the prominent soloists who have performed his music have been violinists Ole Bohn and Lina Bahn, 'cellists Frances-Marie Uitti, Joshua Gordon and Fred Sherry, violist Misha Amory, and pianists Amy Dissanayake, Eliza Garth., Margaret Kampmeier and Sarah Cahill. Mumford is also a composer-member of the Washington, D.C. based Contemporary Music Forum, which has performed his music many times.
Recent and forthcoming performances include toward the deepening stillness beyond visible light (a piano quintet for the Pacifica Quartet and pianist Amy Dissanayake co-commissioned by the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Chamber Music Columbus [OH.] and Omus Hirshbein) at the Krannert Center in Urbana-Champaign, Ill., the milliner's fancy (solo alto saxophone) by saxophonist Rhonda Taylor, premiere performances of an expanding distance of multiple voices (solo violin) by Lina Bahn in Washington, D.C., Paris and Oberlin, OH., eight musings . . . revisiting memories (solo violin) by violinist Ole Bohn, two haiku settings: of place and love for soprano, ëcello and percussion at the Arts Sactuary in Philadelphia and west Chester University, West Chester, PA. and in the community of encompassing hours (piano trio) by the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt at the Musikverein in Vienna. In addition, the CORE ensemble will also give several performances nationwide of a window of resonant light (ëcello, piano, percussion) as part of their touring program entitled Of Ebony Embers.
Mumford's music has also been presented as part of Miller Theatre's Composer Portraits series in New York City,
Current projects include a newly commissioned piece for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra entitled through dancing echoes spreading softly, a work commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King and which commemorates Severance Hall entitled the comfort of his voice, a piano trio (to texts of Sonia Sanchez and commissioned by the Philadelphia based Network for New Music). He has also just completed a work for solo violin entitled an expanding distance of multiple voices for Lina Bahn which was commissioned by a consortium in Washington, D.C., as well as two more short musings for violinist Ole Bohn. Recent CDs featuring Mumford's works include. the promise of the far horizon, containing five recent chamber works was just issued on the Albany Records label (TROY 698), "Telling Tales" (on Capstone Records and sponsored by the Cleveland Composers Guild) which includes pianist Tuyen Tonnu's performance of barbaglio dal manca and ìIngeborg Bachmann: Writing against War which includes the world premiere recording of in the community of encompassing hours as performed by the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt (as part of its ongoing ton/art project) on the Capriccio Records label (Capri.ccio 71 095).
In 2005 Mumford was selected for a residency with the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra as part of the Meet-the Composer/American Symphony Orchestra League ìMusic Alive program. The Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra has also commissioned as new work to be premiered in the Spring of 2007.
His a focused expanse of evolving experience (2003) (fl., vln., vla., vlc., piano) was selected for inclusion and performed as part of the 2005 NEO Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Mr. Mumford is published by Theodore Presser Co. and represented by AIM, artists international management
What the critics say:
. . . A philosophy of music making that embraced both raw passion and a gentle imagistic poetry. . his pieces carry musical evocations of the effects he describes
- Alan Kozinn, N.Y. Times
. . . a composer who makes something mesmerizing and beautiful out of harmonic ambiguity . . Compelling listening . . .
. . . a coloristic glow created by the leisurely unfolding of layered lines . . . contemplative with gleaming touches evoking poetic sonic imagery
- Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer
. . . a gracious use of instruments and a style of writing that is abstract yet attractively figurative
- Joseph Dalton, Time Out New York
"The work depicts clouds in motion Largely static, often pointillistic . . . skillfully exploits sonorities and moods, with reflective passages interrupted by threatening sounds."
- Derrick Henry, Atlanta Journal / Constitution
"The harmonies are dense but never impenetrable, the orchestral colors are downright prismatic, the dissonances are aggressive and angular yet brimming with poetry and nuance." . . .
. . . a fine strong piece. . a near Medieval purity of line. . .
- Tim Page, Washington Post
. . . stretches the listeners ears and imaginations
- Mary Hoffman, Columbus (OH) Dispatch
". . . this music...has a deeply thoughtful, even soulful integrity. . ." . . . Mumford is a composer to watch."
- Robert Carl, Fanfare
. . . . Mumford is an astute craftsman who understands the different timbres and their subtlety
- Sorab Modi, The STRAD