Paul Dresher

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Paul Joseph Dresher (born January 8, 1951 in Los Angeles ) is an American composer.

Life

Dresher studied at the University of California, Berkeley and then at the University of California, San Diego with Robert Erickson , Roger Reynolds , Pauline Oliveros and Bernard Rands . He also studied Ghanaian percussion with Kobla Ladzekpo , classical Hindustan music with Nikhil Banerjee, and Javanese and Balinese music.

Dresher works as a composer and performing musician on experimental operas and music theater pieces, instrumental and electroacoustic works, often using instruments he invented himself.

As the director of the Paul Dresher Ensemble, he realized the music theater work American Trilogy in collaboration with Rinde Eckert : It began with Slow Fire (1985-88), followed by Power Failure and Pioneer , the latter with the participation of the visual artist Terry Allen and the actress Jo Harvey Allen and the singer John Duykers.

In 1993 he toured Japan with his Electric Chamber Band, an ensemble that performs contemporary works in an orchestration of acoustic and electronic instruments and that has since toured the USA, Europe and Indonesia.

In 1994, in collaboration with the choreographer Margaret Jenkins, the piece The Gates was created, with which the "Serious Fun Festival" in Lincoln Center was opened. The musical theater work Sound Stage was performed in 2001 by the ensemble for modern music "Zeitgeist" under Rinde Eckert. The play Snow in June was commissioned by the American Repertory Theater and in collaboration with the playwright Charles Mee .

In the 2004–2005 season the Paul Dresher Ensemble made its debut at Carnegie Hall with a chamber music program by the composer. In the same year the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra premiered Still, Rise, Fall, Again . The following year Dreshers chamber opera The Tyrant with John Duykers was performed at the Cleveland Opera , and in 2006 the piece A Slipping Glimpse , a collaboration with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company , was performed in San Francisco . For the year 2006–2007, Dresher received a Guggenheim grant for composition.

Discography

  • Slow fire
  • Opposites Attract
  • Dark Blue Circumstance
  • This Same Temple & Liquid and Stellar Music , 1984
  • This Same Temple , 1996

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dresher, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dresher, Paul Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH los Angeles