Richard Festinger emerged
into prominence as a composer in the early 1980s. At that time he was a founding director of the nationally
acclaimed Earplay ensemble for contemporary American music in San
Francisco. Before turning to
composing, he led his own groups as a jazz performer, an experience which
has had a profound stylistic influence on his music. Richard Festinger Biography
Today his
His music has been performed on three
continents, in the United States, Europe and Asia. His works have been commissioned by Parnassus, Earplay, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players,
the New York New Music Ensemble, the New Millennium Ensemble, the Redwood
Symphony, the Aprodu-Miroglio Duo, the Alexander String Quartet, the Laurel
Trio, The University of California, New York University, the Left Coast
Ensemble, the City Winds, Alter-Ego, and the Music Teachers National
Association.
His music has also been performed by
Griffin, Phantom Arts, New Millennium, Speculum Musicae, the Sun String
Quartet, Composers Inc., the Seoul
Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Berkeley and Riverside Symphonies,
the Orchestra da Camera Italiana G.F. Ghedini, the Ensemble Italiano per la
Musica Contemporanea, Ensemble Kaleidacollage, sopranos Jane Manning and Karol
Bennett, and the Boston Chamber Ensemble.
Richard Festinger's work has been
honored with commissions and awards from the Jerome Foundation, the Fromm
Foundation at Harvard University, and the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation
in the Library of Congress, the Barlow Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund,
the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1978-80 he studied in Paris as recipient
of the George Ladd Prize, and in 1993 he received the Walter Hinrichsen Award
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 1994 he founded the Composition Workshop as part of the California
State University's annual Summer Arts Festival.
Mr. Festinger has been a resident
composer at the Edward MacDowell Colony
(1982, 1983 and 1985), the Camargo Foundation ( 2000), Cité Internationale des
Arts (2001), Yaddo (2001), the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2001),
the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (1994 and 1996-1997)
and the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento, California (1997), and
has been a fellow at the IRCAM Akadémie d’été in Paris
(2001), the Wellesley Composers Conference (1993), and the June in Buffalo
Festival (1994). In October-November of
2001 Mr. Festinger was in residence at the Central Conservatory of Music in
Beijing, China.
Festinger, who studied composition
and conducting at the University of California in Berkeley, has taught at the
University of California and Dartmouth College, and since 1990 has been a
member of the composition faculty at
San Francisco State University. His
music is published by C.F. Peters Corporation and Fallen Leaf Press, and his
works are recorded on the Centaur, CRI and CRS labels.