The Composition Area presents: Lecture-Presentation with Paul Frehner
The Composition Area presents: Lecture-Presentation
Paul Frehner, composer
Paul Frehner is one of the most dynamic and highly regarded composers of his generation in Canada. His music proposes a unique path in the footsteps of what Ligeti has described as “The Third Way”: a music for the senses, beautifully carved, syncretic, inclusive but challenging, rich in references but pointing to the future.
Please note: These workshops are available to staff and students at the Schulich School of Music. Info on how to attend will be sent by email from publicity.music to the Schulich community weekly.
Born in Montreal in 1970, Paul Frehner completed his Doctorate in music in 2004 at McGill University where he studied composition with Denys Bouliane.
His works have been commissioned and performed by an array of outstanding artists, ensembles, orchestras and opera companies including Almeida Opera, Aldeburgh Productions, Soundstreams Canada, Continuum New York, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, The TSO, the Esprit Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Choir, Aventa Ensemble, the Prague Philharmonia, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the North Holland Philharmonic Orchestra, The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, pianists Brigitte Poulin and André Ristic, the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Le Trio Fibonacci and the Quasar Saxophone Quartet.
In 2001, he was commissioned by the Genesis Foundation to compose Sirius on Earth, an opera based on a libretto by Angela Murphy. Co-produced by Almeida Opera and Aldeburgh Productions, it was premiered in 2003 at the Almeida Opera Festival in London, England. It was subsequently toured to Aldeburgh where it opened the 2003 Proms season.
Paul has received numerous national and international awards, including First Prize in the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra's International Composition Competition for Overture 2000, First Prize in the Prague Philharmonia’s Symphony of the Third Millennium Composition Competition (2001) for his orchestral work Elixirs, Second Prize in the Genesis Prizes for Opera (2003), a Finalist Award in the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s International Composers Award competition (2004) and the Claude Vivier National Award in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s International Composition Competition for Lila (2007). Recently, in 2012 he was awarded the K.M. Hunter Artist Award in Classical Music administered by the Ontario Arts Council.
He is on the Faculty of Music of Western University where he teaches composition, orchestration, electroacoustic music and is the Director of CEARP, the faculty’s state-of-the-art electroacoustic music production studio.
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