Paul Moravec

Paul Moravec, recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Music, is the composer of numerous orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic, and lyric pieces. His music has earned many distinctions, including the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia University, he has taught at Columbia, Dartmouth, Mannes, and Hunter College and is currently University Professor at Adelphi University. He was the 2013 Paul Fromm Composer-in-Residence at the American Academy in Rome, and recently served as Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ.

Frequently commissioned by notable ensembles and major music institutions, Mr. Moravec is currently at work on an oratorio about the Underground Railroad, to be premiered by the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall in 2018. His choral-orchestral work Light Shall Lift Us (to a text by Mark Campbell) premiered recently as part of the One Voice Orlando benefit concert in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting. His most recent opera,  The Shining, based on the Stephen King novel, premiered at Minnesota Opera in May, 2016. Other recent premieres include The King’s Man, with Kentucky Opera, and Amorisms, with the Nashville Ballet. Recent seasons have included the New York premiere of The Blizzard Voices, with the Oratorio Society of NY at Carnegie Hall, as well as the premieres of Violin Concerto, with Maria Bachmann and Symphony in C, and Shakuhachi Concerto, with James Schlefer and the Orchestra of the Swan (U.K.). Other recent premieres include Danse Russe, an opera for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts; Brandenburg Gate, with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; Piano Quintet, with Jeremy Denk and the Lark Quartet; and Wind Symphony, with a consortium of American concert bands.

Mr. Moravec’s discography includes Northern Lights Electric, an album of his orchestral music with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project released in 2012 on the BMOP Sound label. He has five albums of chamber music on Naxos American Classics: Tempest Fantasy, performed by Trio Solisti with clarinetist David Krakauer; The Time Gallery, performed by eighth blackbird; Cool Fire, with the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival; Useful Knowledge, with soprano Amy Burton, baritone Randall Scarlata, Trio Solisti, and la Fenice Quintet; and Violin Concerto, with Maria Bachmann and Rossen Milanov’s Symphony in C.  Among his many other recorded works are: Double Action, Evermore, and Ariel Fantasy, performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo (Endeavour Classics); Sonata for Violin and Piano performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo (BMG/RCA Red Seal); Atmosfera a Villa Aurelia and Vince & Jan, performed by the Lark Quartet (Endeavour Classics); Morph, performed by the String Orchestra of New York (Albany); Anniversary Dances, with the Ying Quartet (Dorian Records); Cornopean Airs, with American Brass Quintet and organist Colin Fowler; and Andy Warhol Sez, with bassoonist Peter Kolkay and pianist Alexandra Nguyen. Other releases include Blue Fiddle, with Hilary Hahn on Deutsche Grammophon, and Piano Quintet, with Jeremy Denk and the Lark Quartet, on Bridge Records.

In the composer’s own words:

The Overlook Hotel Suite is an orchestral fantasy using musical material from my opera The Shining, to a libretto by Mark Campbell based on the novel by Stephen King, which premiered at Minnesota Opera in May. Though the winter caretaker Jack Torrance makes an appearance, this suite focuses on the realm of the hotel’s ghosts, such as Delbert Grady and his two daughters, Lloyd the bartender, and Mrs. Massey (the dead lady in room 217).  The piece moves through various ghost stories and areas of the hotel, returning repeatedly to a never-ending phantom masked gala in the grand ballroom.