MARTIN BRESNICK
Composer

Martin Bresnick was born in New York City in 1946. He was educated at the High School of Music and Art, the University of Hartford (B.A.'67), Stanford University (M.A. '68, D.M.A. '72), and the Akademie fŸr Musik, Vienna ('69-'70). His principal teachers of composition include Gyšrgy Ligeti, John Chowning, and Gottfried von Einem. Presently Professor of Composition and Coordinator of the Composition Department at the Yale School of Music, he has also taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (1971-72) and Stanford University (1972-75). He has also served as the Valentine Professor of Music, Amherst College (1993), and the Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music, Duke University (1998).

Mr. Bresnick's compositions cover a wide range of instrumentation, from chamber music to symphonic compositions and computer music. His orchestral music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, New Haven Symphony, MŸnster Philharmonic, Kiel Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Radio Televisione Italiana, Orchestra New England, City of London Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony Orchestra. His chamber music has been performed in concert by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Sonor; Da Capo Chamber Players; Speculum Musicae; Bang on A Can All Stars; Nash Ensemble; MusicWorks!; Zeitgeist; Left Coast Ensemble; Musical Elements.

He has received many prizes, among them: Fulbright Fellowship (1969-70), Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching at Stanford University (1973), three N.E.A. Composer Grants (1974, 1979, 1990); A.S.C.A.P. Awards (1975-present); Rome Prize Fellowship (1975-76), MacDowell Colony Fellowship (1977), Morse Fellowship from Yale University (1980-81), First Prize, Premio Ancona (1980), First Prize, International Sinfonia Musicale Competition (1982), Connecticut Commission on the Arts Grant, with Chamber Music America (1983), two First Prizes, Composers Inc. Competitions(1985,1989), Semi-finalist, Friedheim Awards(1987), The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Elise L. Stoeger Prize for Chamber Music(1996), "Charles Ives Living" award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters (1998). Mr. Bresnick spent the fall of 1999 in residency at the American Academy In Rome. He was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin for Spring 2001, and in May 2000 was awarded the ASCAP Foundation's Aaron Copland Prize for teaching.

Mr. Bresnick has written music for films, two of which, Arthur & Lillie (1975) and The Day After Trinity (1981), were nominated for Academy Awards in the documentary category, (both with Jon Else, director).