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Masterclass: Brendan Faegre
Tuesday, March 26, 2013 at 1:00 pm
PONCHO Hall, 710 East Roy Street, Seattle, WA
Brendan Faegre (b. 1985, Portland, USA) is an internationally performed composer, percussionist, bandleader, and educator. Built on the premise that the highest caliber musical works from all traditions have more similarities than differences, he combines the resonant elements of numerous musical traditions into a compelling and unique voice. His music draws inspiration from jazz and rock drumming, Hindustani classical music, Norwegian folk music, and many styles and traditions found in Western classical music, all of which he is intimately familiar with, and most of which he is a performer of. Faegre's music has been performed widely by ensembles and musicians such as Slagwerk den Haag, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Brave New Works, Contemporaneous, Luna Nova New Music Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, American Academy of Conducting at Aspen Orchestra, Amphion Percussion, Duo Cross-Fire, Three Valley Percussion Trio, experimental saxophonist Michael Straus, and baroque violinist Lucia Giraudo. His compositions have been programmed at festivals such as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (NL), Beijing Modern Music Festival (CN), Xinghai Conservatory International Music Festival (CN), A Tempo - Festival Internazionale di Musica (IT), Ung Nordisk Musik (DK), Vinterlydfestivalen (NO), Aspen Music Festival, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, International Computer Music Festival, and Belvedere Chamber Music Festival. He has received commissions from Slagwerk den Haag, the Aspen Music Festival, and percussionist Jia Jia Qiao.
His work has been recognized through honors and awards including the Northridge Composition Prize for Orchestra, Beijing Modern Music Festival Young Composer Award, winning the PARMA Student Composer Competition, acceptance in the European Composers' Professional Development Programme, being composer-in-residence for the Lake George Music Festival, an American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship to support a year of composition studies in Norway, a Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival, a BMI Student Composer Award, 1st prize in the Beethoven Club Student Composition Contest, and the ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Fellowship to study at the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
As percussionist Faegre has run the gamut of performing styles. From a youth spent playing in rock bands, to performing as percussionist with the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, to now playing in the Netherlands with avant-folk group Weimarstraat Republic, he performs fluently in many idioms. He spent four months studying tabla traditionally with Pandit Ramdas Palsule in Pune, India, played percussion for George Crumb's 80th birthday celebration at the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, and has premiered numerous works by fellow composers.
A passionate educator, he has maintained a studio of private composition and percussion students for over 8 years, with students ranging in age from 5-40. He served as Associate Instructor of Music Theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music from 2008-2010, taught composition for two summers through the PALS program at Aspen Music Festival and School, and has given lectures on Hindustani classical music, the Indian approach to rhythm, and his own compositions and creative processes.
In order to re-examine his musical roots as an improvising jazz drummer, and integrate his own performance and the idea of improvisation into his compositions, he founded Brendan Faegre Edge Ensemble in 2012. He is currently writing a full concert of music for the group, which will then record and tour in 2012-2013.
Faegre is currently studying at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Peter Adriaansz and Martijn Padding. He received his Master of Music from Indiana University, and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Puget Sound. He has studied composition with Cornelis de Bondt, Lasse Thoresen, Don Freund, Claude Baker, Michael Gandolfi, Gregory Youtz, and Rob Hutchinson, and percussion with Amy Putnam. He has also studied with Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky, and Syd Hodkinson at the Aspen Music Festival and School.
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Tuesday, March 26, 2013 at 1:00 pm
PONCHO Hall, 710 East Roy Street, Seattle, WA
