COMPOSER | PERCUSSIONIST
NEWS
CONCERT IN CHATHAM, NY
SATURDAY JUNE 10, 2023
The Garage at Chatham in Chatham, NY
A Tribute to the Zoellner Quartet
Eric Gratz, Violin (Concertmaster, San Antonio Symphony)
James Thompson, Violin (Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center)
Anthony Bracewell, Viola
Julian Muller, Cello (Williams College)
Brian Shank, Vibraphone
String Quartet in F, K 590 Mozart
String Quartet #2 Eleanor Alberga
Tribus capellis Brian Shank - GAC commission/2023
Quartet #14 in A flat Dvorak
CONCERTS IN PRAGUE, CZ
JUNE 16, 2023 - Divadlo X10 - 19:30h - Prague, Czech Republic
JUNE 18, 2023 - Punctum - 19:30h - Prague, Czech Republic
ECHOES - A Concert Series for Empathy
The program features music from Iranian composers.
Kristýna Větévka will premier a cello solo by Brian titled "SISU" - an unmeasured solo work in the notational style of the French Baroque prélude non mesuré where pitches are notated, but exact rhythmic values are decided on by the player.
Orchestral work Voici venir les temps...
named finalist with the
Atlanta Symphony / American Composer's
Orchestra EarShot competition in May 2023
Brian's orchestral work Voici venir les temps... was named a finalist in this national competition.
"Brilliantly wrought, expertly crafted, masterfully orchestrated, and robustly assured, its argument is vividly imaginative, strikingly resourceful, majestic in its reach, and lapidarian in its burnished polish." - Stephen Hartke
Caroga Lake Music Festival
Brian will be in residence at the Caroga Lake Music Festival this summer, performing in a wide variety of concerts from July 17th through August 27th with artists like Judy Collins, Utica Dance, and Rich.
This year he is composing a children's orchestral concert based on a story by Julian Müller.
Learn more about the Caroga Lake Music Festival and see the schedule
A Look Back: A commission from the
Italian National Gallery for Twenty-first Century Art (MAXXI) in Rome
In 2021, the Italian National Gallery for 21st Century Art (MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo) commissioned Brian to produce music for a new work by Italian artist Alex Cecchetti. The work was performed the Rome Opera Choir. Information about the performance can be found here. Below is a recording of the rehearsal tracks - performance recordings are en route from Italy!
BIOGRAPHY
Brian Shank is an American composer, percussionist, and scholar. He has appeared as a soloist at Bard’s Fisher Center and Troy Music Hall and his work spans a variety of styles to include contemporary-classical music, electronic, electro-acoustic music, and jazz.
In 2021 he was commissioned by the Italian National Gallery for 21st Century Art in Rome, Italy (MAXXI) and artist Alex Cecchetti for an acappella work to score Cecchetti's installation “Come la luna si vede a volte in pieno giorno" involving the music and choreography. The work was performed by The Choir of the Rome Opera.
Much of his work focuses on orchestral music and his most recent orchestral work Voici venir les temps... was named a finalist for the American Composer Orchestra's EarShot readings with the Atlanta Symphony in May 2023. He has notably worked with conductor David Robertson and the New Jersey Symphony when his work Into the Rose Garden was selected as a winner of the prestigious Edward T. Cone Composition Institute. His work He has received commissions from The Juilliard Pre-College Percussion Ensemble, CreArt Box, Caroga Lake Music Festival, Tom Gold Dance modern ballet company, The Garage at Chatham, and others. His incidental music theatre includes chamber music for A Clockwork Orange directed by Tony Award-winning actor Alex Sharp in 2014 in New York.
Brian is very pleased to be named composer in residence for The Garage at Chatham in Chatham, NY for the 2023 season. The Garage has commissioned two works for the season. The first is a work for string quartet and vibraphone - Tribus capellis - that will be preimered on June 10, 2023. The second will be a Third Stream Jazz style work for nonet lead by jazz drumer and composer John Di Fiore on September 2, 2023.
As a percussionist, his playing has been called "valiant" by SF Classical Voice, and "[with] tremendous technique - always in the service of expression" by Arts Alive Publications. Brian was pleased to record and workshop Dariush Derahkshani’s work Pandora’s Box for percussion and electronics that was a finalist in the 2019 Prix CIME Electroacoustic Competition in France. His percussion mentors include Daniel Druckman, Gordon Gottlieb, Joseph Pereira, Richard Albagli, and he has participated in masterclasses with Colin Currie and Nancy Zeltsman.
He can be heard on on Grammy-Award winning bassist Geoff Saunder's 2021 album Geophonia, composer Rick Baitz's 2018 album Into Light (Innova Records) in the percussion quartet Hall of Mirrors (video below), on the live album Fiesta at Caroga with the Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective, and on the soundtrack for the 2017 film Flora which won best score at FilmQuest. He co-produced, was second engineer and performed on a variety of tracks on KASA Quartet's album Forever Wild Vol. 1 (2022) and Vol. 2 (2023). He is currently producing an album of new cello music for cellist Nathan Chan of the Seattle Symphony.
His composition mentors have included Philip Lasser and David Conte (MM 2020, San Francisco Conservatory of Music) and he has participated in masterclasses with Kevin Puts and Aleksandra Vrebalov. As a percussionist he has studied and participated in masterclasses with Dan Druckman, Gordon Gottlieb, Joseph Pereira, Colin Currie, and Nancy Zeltsman. He holds degrees from The Juilliard School (B.M. Percussion) and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (M.M. Music composition).
As an educator, he was a faculty member at the Luzerne Music Center from 2015-2018 and was a core member of the Bridge Arts Ensemble, a teaching arts organization that brought music and art to public schools exclusively in the Adirondack, NY region 2015 to 2020.
He is a resident artist with the Caroga Lake Music Festival (CLMF) and is on the Development sub-committee of the Board of Directors for the festival. Through CLMF has toured with Eddie Barbash (founding member of The Late Show's Stay Human band) and KASA Quartet. Brian is the arranger on staff for the Caroga Lake Music Festival and has written orchestral arrangements for the likes of jazz vocalist Laurin Thalese and folk singer Sierra Ferrell.
In Fall 2023 Brian will begin a Ph.D. Fellowship in History and Theory of Music at the University of California Irvine.
Brian currently resides in Kinderhook, New York.
