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“Jeremy Beck is Exhibit A in classical music’s defense against the charge of being out of touch.”
The best new recordings from North America
A dramatic and lyrical composer of works for varying orchestral, chamber and vocal forces, JEREMY BECK’s latest CD’s were included by Gramophone in its June 2006 Reviews: The best new recordings from North America. pause and feel and hark (innova-650), released in May 2006, features some of his chamber music, including Black Water for soprano and piano. A monodrama based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, reviewers have found Black Water “enthralling … stunning in its intensity” while Oates herself has written of her “admiration for [this] beautiful and haunting composition.” An excerpt may be heard below. In 2004, Wave -- a Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra CD devoted to his music -- was released as innova-612. Reviews of this CD describe Beck's Sinfonietta for string orchestra as "harmonically inventive, thoroughly engaging ... sinewy and gorgeous" and Death of a Little Girl with Doves for soprano and orchestra as displaying "imperious melodic confidence [and] fluent emotional command." At its world premiere, this operatic soliloquy based on the life of sculptor Camille Claudel was appraised as flowing “seamlessly through the use of a dazzling variety of instrumental and vocal color … a fresh, exciting piece by a major talent.”
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Beck's opera The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel was named by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one of the Top Ten Cultural Events in Pittsburgh for the year 2001, while the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review hailed the work at its premiere as "superb ... more successful compositionally ... than many new works seen at major opera houses." Another of his operas, The Highway, was presented by New York City Opera as a part of that company's Showcasing American Composers series in May of 2000; at the premiere of this opera at Yale, the New Haven Register declared that Beck's "handling of dramatic relationships and superimposed time was masterful." Beck has earned awards, grants and honors from the American Composers Orchestra, California Arts Council, the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Composers Forum, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Millay Colony for the Arts, Meet the Composer, Wellesley Composers Conference, Oregon Bach Festival, Iowa Arts Council and the American Music Center. Formerly tenured at the University of Northern Iowa and California State University-Fullerton, he holds degrees from the Yale School of Music (DMA, MMA), Duke University (MA) and the Mannes College of Music (BS), where his principal teachers included Lukas Foss, Jacob Druckman, Stephen Jaffe and David Loeb. Beck currently resides with his wife and son in Louisville, Kentucky. |
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Compositions | |||
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Sinfonietta, mvt. I |
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| Sinfonietta, mvt. I.mp3 - complete | |||
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Scored for string orchestra, this is the first of the Sinfonietta's four movements. Marked Allegro furioso, the fast music of this movement is interrupted by a brief Allegretto, which acts more as an interlude to the music than as a complete contrasting section. This more graceful music is, in fact, a foreshadowing of the third movement, and is more fully developed when it returns at that time. Composed in 1999-2000, this recording appears on the innova CD of Beck's orchestra music, Wave, | |||
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Black Water, part II (3) |
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| Black Water, part II (3).mp3 - complete | |||
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Based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, this extended composition for soprano and piano is not a song-cycle per se, but is closer in its form to that of a monodrama, with the soprano and the pianist assuming multiple roles and states of mind. Fictionally-based on the events at Chappaquidick in 1969, this movement portrays an hallucination, where the drowning woman believes she has been rescued.
Black Water was composed for soprano Jean McDonald and pianist Robin Guy, who recorded the work in 1999. | |||
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Sonata No. 3 for Cello & Piano, mvt. I |
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| Sonata No. 3 for Cello & Piano, mvt. I.mp3 - complete | |||
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Sonata No. 3 for Cello and Piano was composed in 1997. The first movement, entitled Aria da Capo (...sings upon waking), begins with an aria for the cello, accompanied by a simple ostinato in the piano. However, this ostinato is deceptively simple, for within it one may find the seeds for the other two movements of the piece. The middle section of this movement becomes much more rhythmic, with a jazz-like interplay between the instruments. This "middle section" actually ends the movement, and the expectation of a da capo aria is unfulfilled (until the end of the third movement).
Recorded by Emilio Colon, cello and Heather Coltman, piano in 2003, this work is on Beck's newest CD, | |||
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Death of a Little Girl with Doves, mvt. II |
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| Death of a Little Girl with Doves, mvt. II.mp3 - complete | |||
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Death of a Little Girl with Doves for soprano and orchestra is an operatic soliloquy, based on the life of the French sculptor Camille Claudel (1864-1943). In this second of four movements, Claudel is taken away from her studio to be locked away in a mental asylum. Ever defiant, she seeks assistance from her brother, who - unknown to her - has arranged this terrible intrusion into her life. Composed in 1998, this recording appears on the innova CD of Beck's orchestra music, Wave, which was | |||
©2005 by Jeremy Beck
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Jeremy Beck is a member of Society of Composers, Inc. SCI is dedicated to the promotion of composition, performance, understanding and dissemination of new and contemporary music.