Cargo Records

• FOCUS ON: Charles Wuorinen

• Official Website >>
• Label: Tzadik >>
• Genre: Classical

One of the world's greatest composers of classical concert music

Born 9 June 1938, New York City, he has been composing since he was five and he has been a forceful presence on the American musical scene for more than four decades.

In 1970, Wuorinen became the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music, the specific work being Times Encomium, an electronic composition written on commission from Nonesuch Records. The Pulitzer and the MacArthur Fellowship are just two among many awards, fellowships and other honors to have come his way.

Wuorinen has written more than 200 compositions to date. His newest works include his Fourth Piano Concerto for pianist Peter Serkin, commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for James Levine's first season as Music Director, Ashberyana, a setting of poems by John Ashbery, Cyclops (2000) for the London Sinfonietta, Symphony Seven, Fourth String Quartet, for the Brentano Quartet, September 11, 2001, a setting of W.H. Auden for tenor and piano. His opera based on Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories was given its world premiere in Fall 2004.

An indication of Wuorinens historical importance can be seen in the fact that in 1975 Stravin­skys widow gave Wuorinen the composers last sketches for use in A Reliquary for Igor Stravin­sky. Wuorinen was the first composer commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnanyi (Movers and Shakers); and likewise the first to compose for Michael Tilson Thomas New World Symphony ( Bamboula Beach). Fractal geometry and the pioneer­ing work of Benoit Mandelbrot have played a crucial role in several of his works including Bamboula Squared and the Natural Fantasy, a work for organ.

His works have been recorded on nearly a dozen labels including several releases on Albany Records (Charles Wuorinen Series) and two recent discs on the Tzadik label, Lepton and On Alligators

Wuorinens works are published exclusively by C.F. Peters Corporation. He is the author of Simple Composition, used by composition students throughout the world.

An eloquent writer and speaker, Wuorinen has lectured at universities throughout the United States and abroad, and has served on the faculties of Columbia, Princeton, and Yale Universities, the University of Iowa, University of California (San Diego), Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory, State University of New York at Buffalo, and is presently Professor of Composition at Rutgers University.

Wuorinen has also been active as performer, an excellent pianist and a distinguished conductor of his own works as well as other twentieth century repertoire. His orchestral appear­ances have included the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the American Composers Orchestra.

In 1962 he co-founded the Group for Contemporary Music, one of Americas most prestigious ensembles dedicated to performance of new chamber music. In addition to cultivating a new generation of performers, commissioning and premiering hundreds of new works, the Group has been a model for many similar organizations which have appeared in the United States since its founding.

Wuorinen is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.