Evan Hause
Encyclopedia
Evan Hause is an American composer
, percussion
ist and conductor
. Hause has composed over fifty works ranging from rock music to opera.
, North Carolina
, he earned the Doctor of Music Arts (1996) and Master of Music (1992) degrees in composition from the University of Michigan
, and the Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory in composition and percussion, where he was awarded the Herbert Elwell Award (1990). He attended the North Carolina School of the Arts
as a percussionist (1985–87). He studied composition with Sherwood Shaffer, Randolph Coleman
, Richard Hoffmann
(at the Schoenberg Haus in Moedling, Austria
in an Oberlin abroad program in 1989), William Albright
, William Bolcom
and Leslie Bassett
, among others. He has been commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra
, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Tales&Scales, Alarm Will Sound
, and the Carolina Chamber Music Festival. He has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony
, Atlantic Center for the Arts
(where he studied with David N. Baker), the Aspen Music Festival (lessons with Jacob Druckman and Bernard Rands), June in Buffalo (master classes with Milton Babbitt, Roger Reynolds, Lukas Foss, and Donald Erb) and the Edward Albee
"Barn" at Montauk, NY.
Hause has composed over fifty compositions for standard instrumentations, including solo instruments, chamber groups, orchestra, band, chorus, rock band, big band, and opera. He has set to music the poetry of D. H. Lawrence
, James Joyce
, Hugh Ogden
, Adrienne Rich
, and himself. He created three chamber operas with the librettist Gary Heidt called "The Defenestration Trilogy" and four "mini-operas" for the Dogs of Desire (a satellite ensemble from the Albany Symphony). He has a catalog of some 80 rock songs, 13 of which were released nationally on the 1998 CD "Adventures of Freddy," an album on which Hause plays and sings all parts. He made two arrangements for the New York-based ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. The first, Aphex Twin
's "Omgyjya Switch 7" was performed at the Lincoln Center Festival on July 24, 2005, and was released on Cantalope Records on the CD Acoustica. The second, of Edgard Varèse
's Poème Électronique, was premiered at Columbia University's Miller Theater on January 20, 2007. As a freelance arranger he has created scores and arrangements for composers George Tsontakis
and Paquito D'Rivera
.
Hause studied percussion with James Massie Johnson, Jr., Michael Rosen
, Michael Udow, and Salvatore Rabbio. After youthful accolades such as being named timpanist of the North Carolina All-State Band and Orchestra, and an award from the Brevard Music Center, he earned the Terry Sanford Scholarship to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He has played in the North Carolina, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charleston (SC), Flint (MI), Ann Arbor, and Long Island (NY) Symphonies, among others. As a contemporary music percussionist he has played with the Locrian Chamber Players and the S.E.M. Ensemble.
Hause studied conducting with Peter Perret, Robert Ponto, Robert Spano
, Robert Hause, and at the Conductor's Institute. He conducted the premieres of his three operas, as well as the premiere of Andrew Mead
's Concerto for Alto Saxophone
and 12 Instruments with soloist Timothy McAllister and an early performance of Carter Pann
's Dance Partita, among others.
As an electric guitarist he appeared on the Alarm Will Sound
CD Acoustica, in performances of his own Concerto for Electric Guitar and Symphony Band with the bands of the Universities of Michigan and Florida, and on the Cadence jazz CD, "Tony's Blues" with poet Barry Wallenstein and pianist John Hicks
. As a pianist he accompanied the off-off-Broadway revival of Mae West
's Sex for the Hourglass Group at the Gershwin Theater in New York City (1999–2000).
As an educator, Hause taught percussion at the North Carolina Governor's School West in 1991; theory, composition and percussion at Pittsburg State University in Kansas in from 1996–1999; and theory at Concordia College in Bronxville, NY from 2003-2005.
When not composing, Hause is the Publications Director for the Edward B. Marks Music Company. In this capacity he oversees publications by composers William Bolcom
, Kenneth Fuchs
, and Curtis Curtis-Smith, Roger Sessions
, Mario Davidovsky
, the Cuban composers Ernesto Lecuona
and Gonzalo Roig
, and others.
The Birth and Theft of Television is a fictional interweave of the travails of the two great American inventors, Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of television) and Edwin H. Armstrong (inventor of F.M.), and their battles against corporate America, consolidated into the personage of David Sarnoff
(CEO of RCA), leading up to Armstrong's suicide by self-defenestration in 1954.
Nightingale: The Last Days of James Forrestal
is an imagined glimpse into the mind of the first U.S. Secretary of Defense in his final six weeks of life (1949) as he underwent treatment for nervous exhaustion in the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Among the characters who visit him are Harry Truman, Sidney Souers
, his wife Josephine, and Lyndon B. Johnson
before Forrestal dies by falling from his window.
Man: Biology of a Fall is a similar glimpse into unknowable events surrounding the last week of life of Frank Olson
, a biochemist who is believed to have been murdered in 1953 by defenestration. The backdrop of this opera is Fort Detrick
, the CIA's MK-ULTRA mind control program, Greenwich Village, and the Statler Hotel in New York City. Other characters drawn from real persons include Sidney Gottlieb
, William Sargant
, and George Hunter White.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
ist and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
. Hause has composed over fifty works ranging from rock music to opera.
Biography and career
After growing up in GreenvilleGreenville, North Carolina
Greenville is the county seat of Pitt County and principal city of the Greenville, North Carolina metropolitan area. Greenville is the health, entertainment, and educational hub of North Carolina's Tidewater and Coastal Plain and in 2008 was listed as the Tenth Largest City in North Carolina...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, he earned the Doctor of Music Arts (1996) and Master of Music (1992) degrees in composition from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, and the Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory in composition and percussion, where he was awarded the Herbert Elwell Award (1990). He attended the North Carolina School of the Arts
North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
as a percussionist (1985–87). He studied composition with Sherwood Shaffer, Randolph Coleman
Randolph Coleman
Randolph 'Randy' Coleman is an American composer and educator. He was the first chairman of the national council of the American Society of University Composers , a position later held by Frank Zappa.-Biography:...
, Richard Hoffmann
Richard Hoffmann (composer)
Richard Hoffmann was a United States pianist and composer.-Biography:He came to New York City in his 16th year. He received early instruction from Anton Rubinstein, Franz Liszt, Sigismond Thalberg, Döbler and Meyer...
(at the Schoenberg Haus in Moedling, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
in an Oberlin abroad program in 1989), William Albright
William Albright
William Albright may refer to:*William F. Albright , evangelical Methodist archaeologist, biblical authority, linguist and expert on ceramics*William Albright , American composer, pianist, and organist...
, William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
and Leslie Bassett
Leslie Bassett
Leslie Bassett is an American composer of classical music, and the University of Michigan’s Albert A. Stanley Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Composition...
, among others. He has been commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra
Albany Symphony Orchestra
The Albany Symphony Orchestra is a professional symphony orchestra based in Albany, New York. The upcoming season will mark the orchestra's 78th....
, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Tales&Scales, Alarm Will Sound
Alarm Will Sound
Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member chamber orchestra that focuses on recordings and performances of contemporary music. Its performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the Financial Times and as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the San Francisco...
, and the Carolina Chamber Music Festival. He has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony
MacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
, Atlantic Center for the Arts
Atlantic Center for the Arts
Atlantic Center for the Arts is a nonprofit, interdisciplinary artists’ community and arts education facility dedicated to promoting artistic excellence by providing talented artists an opportunity to work and collaborate with some of the world’s most distinguished contemporary artists in the...
(where he studied with David N. Baker), the Aspen Music Festival (lessons with Jacob Druckman and Bernard Rands), June in Buffalo (master classes with Milton Babbitt, Roger Reynolds, Lukas Foss, and Donald Erb) and the Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
"Barn" at Montauk, NY.
Hause has composed over fifty compositions for standard instrumentations, including solo instruments, chamber groups, orchestra, band, chorus, rock band, big band, and opera. He has set to music the poetry of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, Hugh Ogden
Hugh Ogden
Hugh Ogden was an American poet and educator. Born March 11, 1937, in Erie, Pennsylvania, Ogden was a 1959 graduate of Haverford College. Ogden received his master’s degree from New York University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He taught at the University of Michigan and then for...
, Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
, and himself. He created three chamber operas with the librettist Gary Heidt called "The Defenestration Trilogy" and four "mini-operas" for the Dogs of Desire (a satellite ensemble from the Albany Symphony). He has a catalog of some 80 rock songs, 13 of which were released nationally on the 1998 CD "Adventures of Freddy," an album on which Hause plays and sings all parts. He made two arrangements for the New York-based ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. The first, Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin
Richard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
's "Omgyjya Switch 7" was performed at the Lincoln Center Festival on July 24, 2005, and was released on Cantalope Records on the CD Acoustica. The second, of Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
's Poème Électronique, was premiered at Columbia University's Miller Theater on January 20, 2007. As a freelance arranger he has created scores and arrangements for composers George Tsontakis
George Tsontakis
George Tsontakis is an American composer and conductor.Tsontakis studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1978, and later with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome...
and Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera
Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban alto saxophonist, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist. The winner of multiple Grammys and other awards, D'Rivera has lived in the United States since the early 1980s. He has worked in a variety of contexts, but is perhaps best known for playing Latin...
.
Hause studied percussion with James Massie Johnson, Jr., Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen
Michael Wayne Rosen is a broadcaster, children's novelist and poet and the author of 140 books. He was appointed as the fifth Children's Laureate in June 2007, succeeding Jacqueline Wilson, and held this honour until 2009....
, Michael Udow, and Salvatore Rabbio. After youthful accolades such as being named timpanist of the North Carolina All-State Band and Orchestra, and an award from the Brevard Music Center, he earned the Terry Sanford Scholarship to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He has played in the North Carolina, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charleston (SC), Flint (MI), Ann Arbor, and Long Island (NY) Symphonies, among others. As a contemporary music percussionist he has played with the Locrian Chamber Players and the S.E.M. Ensemble.
Hause studied conducting with Peter Perret, Robert Ponto, Robert Spano
Robert Spano
Robert Spano is an American conductor and pianist. Since 2001 he has been Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra , and he served as Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic from 1996 to 2004...
, Robert Hause, and at the Conductor's Institute. He conducted the premieres of his three operas, as well as the premiere of Andrew Mead
Andrew Mead
Andrew M. Mead has been a justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court since 2007. His current term expires in 2014.Mead attended the University of Maine and New York Law School....
's Concerto for Alto Saxophone
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
and 12 Instruments with soloist Timothy McAllister and an early performance of Carter Pann
Carter Pann
Carter Pann is an American composer. He studied composition and piano at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree...
's Dance Partita, among others.
As an electric guitarist he appeared on the Alarm Will Sound
Alarm Will Sound
Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member chamber orchestra that focuses on recordings and performances of contemporary music. Its performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the Financial Times and as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the San Francisco...
CD Acoustica, in performances of his own Concerto for Electric Guitar and Symphony Band with the bands of the Universities of Michigan and Florida, and on the Cadence jazz CD, "Tony's Blues" with poet Barry Wallenstein and pianist John Hicks
John Hicks
Sir John Richard Hicks was a British economist and one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economics were his statement of consumer demand theory in microeconomics, and the IS/LM model , which...
. As a pianist he accompanied the off-off-Broadway revival of Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
's Sex for the Hourglass Group at the Gershwin Theater in New York City (1999–2000).
As an educator, Hause taught percussion at the North Carolina Governor's School West in 1991; theory, composition and percussion at Pittsburg State University in Kansas in from 1996–1999; and theory at Concordia College in Bronxville, NY from 2003-2005.
When not composing, Hause is the Publications Director for the Edward B. Marks Music Company. In this capacity he oversees publications by composers William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
, Kenneth Fuchs
Kenneth Fuchs
Kenneth Fuchs is an American composer, conductor, and educator. He currently serves as Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut ....
, and Curtis Curtis-Smith, Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
, Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...
, the Cuban composers Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona y Casado was a Cuban composer and pianist of Canarian father and Cuban mother, and worldwide fame. He composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality....
and Gonzalo Roig
Gonzalo Roig
Gonzalo Roig was a Cuban musician, composer, musical director and founder of several orchestras. He was a pioneer of the symphonic movement in Cuba....
, and others.
The Defenestration Trilogy
The trilogy consists of : The Birth and Theft of Television (2001), premiered March 26, 2001 at the Theater for the New City, Nightingale: The Last Days of James Forrestal (2002), premiered May 19, 2002 at the Present Company Theatorium, and Man: Biology of a Fall (2007), premiered October 4, 2007 at Kumble Theater of Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus. Each work sets a libretto by Gary Heidt, employs a cast of approximately 10 singers, and employs an orchestra of 7-15 players.The Birth and Theft of Television is a fictional interweave of the travails of the two great American inventors, Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of television) and Edwin H. Armstrong (inventor of F.M.), and their battles against corporate America, consolidated into the personage of David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
(CEO of RCA), leading up to Armstrong's suicide by self-defenestration in 1954.
Nightingale: The Last Days of James Forrestal
James Forrestal
James Vincent Forrestal was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense....
is an imagined glimpse into the mind of the first U.S. Secretary of Defense in his final six weeks of life (1949) as he underwent treatment for nervous exhaustion in the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Among the characters who visit him are Harry Truman, Sidney Souers
Sidney Souers
Sidney William Souers was an American admiral and intelligence expert. He held the posts of:* Director of Central Intelligence, Central Intelligence Group, 1946* Executive Secretary, National Security Council, 1947–1950...
, his wife Josephine, and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
before Forrestal dies by falling from his window.
Man: Biology of a Fall is a similar glimpse into unknowable events surrounding the last week of life of Frank Olson
Frank Olson
Frank Olson was a U.S. Army biological warfare specialist employed at Fort Detrick in Maryland. Believed to have committed suicide in 1953 as a result of depression, it was later revealed that he had been exposed to LSD and other psychoactive drugs as part of experiments, leading some to believe...
, a biochemist who is believed to have been murdered in 1953 by defenestration. The backdrop of this opera is Fort Detrick
Fort Detrick
Fort Detrick is a U.S. Army Medical Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland, USA. Historically, Fort Detrick was the center for the United States' biological weapons program ....
, the CIA's MK-ULTRA mind control program, Greenwich Village, and the Statler Hotel in New York City. Other characters drawn from real persons include Sidney Gottlieb
Sidney Gottlieb
Sidney Gottlieb was an American chemist probably best known for his involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency's mind control program MKULTRA.-Life:...
, William Sargant
William Sargant
William Walters Sargant was a controversial British psychiatrist who is remembered for the evangelical zeal with which he promoted treatments such as psychosurgery, deep sleep treatment, electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock therapy.Sargant studied medicine at St John's College, Cambridge,...
, and George Hunter White.
Sources
- Dalton, Joseph, "Dogs of Desire Bring Modern Flair", Albany Times Union, March 30, 2007
- Johnson, Martin, "Conspiracy Opera is a Hause Specialty", Newsday, June 4, 2004
- Kerner, Leighton, "In Review: Nightingale: The Last Days of James Forrestal" Opera NewsOpera NewsOpera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
September, 2002 - Kessler, Jordan, "Hoses, Power Tools, and Water Cart" (Alarm Will Sound interview), www.popmatters.com, October 3, 2005
- Kozinn, Allan, "No Reason They Can't Be Medieval, Too", The New York Times, August 17, 2002
- Lockwood, Alan, "Imposing Thirds" The Brooklyn Rail, October, 2007
- Midgette, Anne, "Back to a Future Unmade: Glittering, Playful Varèse", The New York Times, January 27, 2007
- New York Press, "...a Conspiracy Theory opera...", May 21, 2002
- Tommasini, Anthony, "A Contemporary Chamber Group, and That's Exactly What It Means", The New York Times, August 27, 2001