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"Composer Derek Bermel may not be a household name yet, but if there is any justice in the music world, he soon will be." - CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Described as "an eclectic with wide open ears ," Derek Bermel has been widely
hailed by colleagues, critics, and audiences across the globe for his creativity
and theatricality as a composer of chamber, symphonic, dance, theater, and
pop works, and his virtuosity and charisma as a clarinetist, conductor, and jazz
and rock musician. Known for drawing freely from a rich variety of musical
genres --including classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, and gospel --he filters the
sounds of the world through his own musical palette, crafting a singular artistic
vision.
His hands-on experience with music of cultures around the world has become
part of the fabric and force of Bermel's compositional language. He studied
ethnomusicology and orchestration in Jerusalem, and later traveled to Bulgaria
to study the Thracian folk style, Dublin to study uillean pipes, and Ghana to
study the Lobi xylophone. From the complex Bulgarian melodies in Tied Shifts,
to Irish bagpipes coupled by Led Zepplin-inspired riffs in Voices, Bermel infuses
his music with the rhythms and inflections of myriad folk traditions while
maintaining a sophisticated and distinctive style of orchestration, harmony,
and counterpoint.
Bermel's many awards include the Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright
Fellowships, the Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Millennium Commission from Faber Music, a Koussevitsky Commission, and the Trailblazer Award from the American Music Center. He studied composition at Yale University with Michael Tenzer, at the University of Michigan with William Bolcom and William Albright, and later at Tanglewood with Henri Dutilleux and in Amsterdam with Louis Andriessen. Bermel's music is published by Peermusic Classical (US) and Faber Music (UK).
As a composer of concert music, Bermel currently serves as the 2006-2009
Music Alive Composer-in-Residence of the American Composers Orchestra. The
residency utilizes the full range of his talents, through commissioned works,
performances, educational programs of his own design, and outreach activities.
Bermel plays a lead role as curator for its ongoing series Orchestra
Underground: Composers Out Front, and in developing collaborative programs,
including a new initiative with Jazz at Lincoln Center. In November 2006, the
Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in conjunction with the ACO premiered his Migration Series.
Other recent
commissions include those by the Pittsburgh Symphony, National Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, WNYC Radio, Westchester Philharmonic, Aspen Music Festival, Pacific Symphony, Gilmore Festival, Eighth Blackbird/Greenwall Foundation, Fromm Foundation, Flute/Clarinet Duo Consortium, Faber Music Millennium Series, Tanglewood Music Center, Albany Symphony/Meet the Composer, De Ereprijs (Netherlands), Birmingham Royal Ballet (U.K.),
Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, Koussevitsky Foundation, New York International Fringe Festival, TONK, Jazz Xchange (U.K.), pianists Christopher Taylor and Andy Russo, organist William Albright, baritone Timothy Jones, cellist Fred Sherry, and the New York Youth Symphony.
In Spring 2006 the Philharmonia (London) performed an
all-Bermel concert as part of their Music of Today series.
His music has also been featured at festivals worldwide including De Suite Muziekweek (Amsterdam),
Composers Inc. (San Francisco), Imagine (Memphis), Cactus Pear (San Antonio), Gaudeamus (Amsterdam), Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference (Iowa), American Guild of Organists (Washington, Los Angeles), Society for New Music (NY), Bowling Green (Ohio), Focus! (NY), Interlochen (Michigan), Huddersfield (U.K.), Thunderclaps (Den Haag), and Banff (Alberta).
His
upcoming musical Golden Motors -- written with librettist Wendy S. Walters -- will be produced in fall 2007 by Music Theatre Group. Other recent collaborations include those with playwright Will Eno (Fetch), choreographer
Sheron Wray (Messengers and Identity with Resistance), poet Naomi Shihab Nye (Dog), and filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson (Spicebush, Special Man). His premiere CD of chamber music, Soul Garden, was released last season to
critical acclaim. "Soul Garden is a superb album of consistently winning chamber works that demonstrate how a brilliant musical vagabond... " (Sequenza 21). A second disc, featuring four orchestral works, is due to be
released in fall 2008 by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and a third in 2009 by Alarm Will Sound.
As a conductor, Bermel was the recipient of one of three Ford Foundation Conducting Awards, leading the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in his Continental Divide and Edward Miller's Cascades. He recently led the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble in a program including two of his own works, conducted his orchestral work, Dust Dances, at Interlochen Academy and with the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, as well as the premiere of
his Three Rivers at The Kitchen in New York City. He also toured with the British dance company Jazz Xchange, conducting and performing in his composition Messengers, a collaboration with choreographer Sheron Wray; he also conducted his score for two Brecht plays, Caucasian Chalk Circle and
Drums in the Night at the International Fringe Festival in New York, and in Banff he conducted the premiere of his West African Folk Songs.
As a performer, Bermel's clarinet playing has been hailed by the New York Times as "brilliant" and "first rate". Well-versed in the classical and jazz repertoire on clarinet and piano, he trained with Ben Armato of the Metropolitan Opera and later with Keith Wilson at Yale University. He premiered his own critically acclaimed clarinet concerto Voices
with the American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, and revisited it with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Albany and Kalamazoo Symphonies, the BBC Symphony in London, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (John Adams conducting). He also premiered dozens of new works for clarinet in appearances as soloist throughout the U.S. and Europe, including recitals in
New York, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Detroit, Jerusalem, The Hague, and Paris, and radio broadcasts on the BBC (London), NCRV (Amsterdam), and WQXR (New
York). In 2007, he returned to the LA Philharmonic as guest soloist performing John Adams' Gnarly Buttons with the composer conducting. Other recent concerto appearances include Bolcom's Concerto for Clarinet with the Lexington (KY) Philharmonic and the Greensboro (NC) Symphony, André Hajdu's klezmer concerto, Jewish Rhapsody with the Westchester Philharmonic (NY), and the Copland Concerto at the Crested Butte Music Festival (CO).
Bermel serves as co-artistic director of the Dutch-American interdisciplinary ensemble TONK, which he founded along with electric guitarist Wiek Hijmans. Bermel is also the founding clarinetist of Music from Copland House, a creative
center for American Music. His Brooklyn-based band, PEACE BY PIECE, features Bermel as bandleader/singer/songwriter, features Bobby Roe on bass, Ryan Scott on guitar, and Steve Altenberg on drums. They've performed to capacity crowds at many of the top clubs in New York, including Joe's Pub, BAMcafé, Southpaw, and the Cutting Room. PEACE BY PIECE has released two albums on Miscellaneous Records: their first, self-titled album in 2000, and most recently The Elements in 2004.
As an educator, Bermel is the founding director of the Making Score program of the New York Youth Symphony, an annual, year-round program of 25 young composers featuring guest lecturers ranging from Meredith Monk to Steve Reich,
Vijay Iyer, Wycliffe Gordon, Ellen Taafe Zwilich, and Stephen Sondheim. Bermel has led master classes and held residencies throughout the U.S. and abroad at schools including Yale University, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Longy School of Music, Peabody School of Music, Columbia University, Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, RISDI, Rotterdam Conservatorium (Netherlands), University of Western Michigan (Kalamazoo), University of Chicago, Universita Federal da Bahia (Brazil), University of Texas (Austin), UCLA, University of North Carolina (Greensboro), Eastern Carolina University,
Northwestern University, Aspen School of Music, Bowdoin Festival of Music, Duquesne University, and the Tanglewood Music Center.
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