David Felder

"David Felder has long been recognized as a leader in his generation of American composers.  His works have been featured at many of the leading international festivals for contemporary  music,  and earn continuing recognition through performance and commissioning programs.  Felder’s work has been broadly characterized by its highly energetic profile, through its frequent employment of technological extension and elaboration of musical materials (including his “Crossfire” video series, and the video/music collaboration “Shamayim”), and its lyrical qualities.

Felder has received numerous grants and commissions including many awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York State Council commissions, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Guggenheim, two Koussevitzky commissions, two Fromm Foundation Fellowships, two awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer “New Residencies”  (1993-1996) composer residency with the Buffalo Philharmonic, two commissions from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, and many more. In May 2010, he received the Music Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a career recognition award. Shamayim was awarded a Silver Medal in Music from the Park City Film Festival in Spring, 2011.

Current commission projects in the period 2013 – 2016 include new works to be composed for the Arditti Quartet, Talujon Percussion, New York New Music Ensemble, a horn trio for Adam Unswurth, Yuki Numata, and Eric Huebner, a work for contrabass clarinet and electronics, a chamber concerto for Irvine Arditti and Ensemble Linea, and a work for NEO Norbotten.

Felder serves as Birge-Cary Chair in Composition at SUNY, Buffalo, and has been Artistic Director of the “June in Buffalo” Festival from 1985, when he revived it upon his arrival in Buffalo, to the present. Since 2006, he has been Director of the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music at the University.  From 1992 to 1996 he was Meet the Composer "New Residencies", Composer-in-Residence to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and WBFO-FM. In 1996, he formed the professional chamber orchestra, the Slee Sinfonietta, and has been Artistic Director since that time. In 2008, he was named SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest rank in the entirety of the SUNY system. A dedicated teacher and mentor, he has served as Ph.D. dissertation advisor and major professor for over sixty composers at Buffalo, many of whom are actively teaching, composing and performing internationally at leading institutions. Felder served as Master Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in February-March, 2010.  His works are published by Theodore Presser, and Project Schott New York, and portrait recordings are available on Albany, Bridge, Mode, and EMF. On June 1, 2013, a new Blu-ray surround portrait recording  of numerous works will be released on Albany/Troy 1418."[1]

[1] Felder, David. "Biographical Statement"