Lansing McLoskey (b.1964) came to the world of composition via a somewhat unorthodox route. The proverbial "Three B's" for him were not Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, but rather The Beatles, Bauhaus and Black Flag. His first experiences at writing music were not exercises in counterpoint, but as the guitarist and songwriter for punk rock bands in San Francisco in the early 1980's. It was actually through these years in the visceral world of punk that he first developed a love for classical music (but that's another story).
Described
as
"a
major
talent and a deep thinker with a great ear" by
the American
Composers Orchestra, "an engaging, gifted composer writing
smart, compelling and
fascinating music…with a bluesy edge and infectious punch"
by
Gramophone Magazine, and "a distinctive voice in present day
American music,"
Lansing McLoskey has had his music performed to critical acclaim across
the
U.S. and in twelve other countries on six continents.
His music has an emotional intensity that
appeals to academic and amateur alike, defying traditional stylistic
pigeonholes. He has
won numerous
national and international awards, most recently the prestigious 2011
Goddard
Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 he became the
first composer in the
45 year history of the ISU Contemporary Music Festival to win both the
Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition and the
“Music Now”
Competition, both blind-juried national competitions with two
independent
juries. Among his
other awards are the
2009 newEar First Annual Composition Competition, the Omaha Symphony
International New Music Competition (First Prize), the Kenneth Davenport National
Competition for Orchestral
Works (First Prize), the Charles Ives
Center Orchestral Composition Competition, Lee Ettelson
Composers Award,
Paris New Music Review International Composition Competition (First
Prize), the
SCI/ASCAP 2000 National Student Composition Competition (First Prize),
the Charles
Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters,
and an Astral
Career Grant from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.
Among
his commissions are those from
Meet The Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Charitable
Trusts, The
Fromm Foundation (as part of a special grant to Composers in Red
Sneakers),
ASCAP, the Barlow Endowment, Music At The Anthology for The New
Millennium
Ensemble, violist Leticia Oaks Strong of the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
King's
Chapel (Boston), and many others. He
has
written for such renowned ensembles as The Hilliard Ensemble, Speculum
Musicæ, The
Crossing Choir and Dinosaur Annex. McLoskey's
music has been performed at two dozen music festivals, including the
Piccolo
Spoleto Festival, where he was one of the Composers-in-Residence. Recent performances
include premieres in Boston, New
York,
Philadelphia, Rome, Chicago, Miami, and Melbourne, Australia, and
performances
at Aspen (where he was a Guest Composer), the International
Contemporary Art
Festival in León, Mexico, Tanglewood, and the XVIII
International Jazz Festival
in Lima, Peru. Current
commissions
include a concerto for Triton Brass and a consortium of wind ensembles
for
2011/12, and a commission from the soundSCAPE Festival in Italy, where
he will
be the Composer-in-Residence in July of 2011.
McLoskey
completed a Ph.D. at Harvard University, where he directed The Harvard
Group
for New Music. He
holds degrees with
honors from UC Santa Barbara and the USC Thornton School of Music, with
additional studies at The Royal Danish Academy of Music, the Wellesley
Composers Conference, and the Advanced Masterclass at the Aspen Music
School. His
principle teachers were Mario Davidovsky,
Stephen Hartke, Bernard Rands, and Donald Crockett.
His book Twentieth
Century Danish Music remains the only comprehensive research
guide on the
topic, and he was awarded the Haug Prize for Scandinavian Studies in
recognition of his contributions to the field.
Click here to see review excerpts.
Click here to see a list of current projects.
For a detailed CV, click here.