Adrienne Albert
Featuring: Adrienne Albert
What does it take to succeed in the world of contemporary concert music? Adrienne Albert is beloved around the world by audiences and performers alike. At this meeting of our LA Ravel, she talks about singing for Stravinsky, contracting West Side Story for Leonard Bernstein, and making experimental music with Philip Glass. She has amazing insights on some amazing scores. She gave premieres for Stravinsky and Philip Glass and shares stories from those historic events. She also has a busy career as a composer and had five new works premiered around the world last year, including a commission about Nobel Prize winner Malala! Adrienne is a great speaker about composing and performing at the highest levels.
About Adrienne Albert
Having collaborated with other composers as a singer (Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, and Gunther Schuller to name a few), Adrienne Albert began composing her own music in the 1990’s. Her music has been widely performed throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe, Australia, South America, Canada, Thailand, China, and South Africa. The child of European-trained professional violinists, Adrienne began studying the piano at age 4 and composition at 10. She had the good fortune to have had great teachers: for piano, Jacob Gimpel and Aube Tzerko in Los Angeles, Joanna Graudan at the Aspen Music School and early composition studies with Saul Kaplan and Leonard Stein. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in music performance and education. After enjoying a lengthy career performing other people’s music in Los Angeles and New York, she returned to L.A. to study composition with Stephen “Lucky” Mosko at CalArts and orchestration with Albert Harris. “Music has always been a central part of my life. Whether it has been performing, singing, or composing, it is the thread that weaves through each part of my being. I find joy in every form of music, and my life has been an eclectic patchwork of music ranging from avant-garde 20th century vocal and choral music to baroque, ethnic, folk music, jazz, popular, and of course, classical music. We are each an amalgam of our pasts, influenced by our individual experiences, and I have been extremely fortunate in having an extraordinary past which informs my present and makes me look forward with great enthusiasm to the future.”