Summer Festival Spotlight: David Crowell

While some of the resident composers for the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival are recent graduates or still studying for advanced degrees, saxophonist and composer David Crowell already is well along in his professional career.

He has a very active schedule as a performer, touring with the famed Philip Glass Ensemble and leading his own band, and his compositions have been performed frequently in New York City and by various student and professional ensembles across the US.

In fact, Crowell (pictured) will have two major performances of his works on the same night this month.  On Saturday, July 28, Alarm Will Sound will play his new piece Fallout for the grand finale of the MNMSF, and his composition Waiting in the Rain For Snow (originally written for and recorded by the Now Ensemble) will be performed as part of the Bang on a Can Summer Marathon at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

He has issued two CDs as a leader on the Innova Recordings label, 2009’s Spectrum, and Eucalyptus, which features a new work for multiple saxophones and electronics and was released in April of this year. Crowell’s music has received radio play on national and international stations, including New York City’s classical station WQXR and public radio station WNYC, with features on WNYC’s “New Sounds with John Schaefer.”

A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Crowell also has performed with the N.Y. Philharmonic, the L.A. Philharmonic, Signal Ensemble, Asphalt Orchestra, L’Arsenale, at the Bang on a Can Marathon and the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival. In addition to his solo CDs, he has recorded with the Philip Glass Ensemble, Signal Ensemble, Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean, William Brittelle, and Ken Thomson and Anti-Social Music. And when he’s not composing or performing, Crowell also teaches saxophone, flute, clarinet and composition at the Bloomingdale School of Music and various other locations around New York City.

You can read a review of Eucalyptus from the website Sequenza21 here, and hear more samples of Crowell’s music in the embedded video windows below.

The New York-based Jack Quartet performs David Crowell’s The Open Road (excerpt)

Crowell’s The Day After, Mvt. I performed by the Campbellsville University Percussion Ensemble, directed by Dr. Chad Floyd