About Me
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MUSICAL SAMPLES
Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985): Movement III from Tetragram 3, "Rebirth" (1927) [Furious Artisans FACD 6807]
Erik Satie (1866-1925): Uspud: Ballet Chretien (1892) - excerpt from Act II; version without narration [Les Temps Modernes LTMCD 2469]
Erik Satie (1866-1925): Uspud: Ballet Chretien (1892) - excerpt from Act II - version with narration [Furious Artisans FACD 6807]
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Composer-pianist Richard Cameron-Wolfe was born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA and received his music training at Oberlin College and Indiana University. His principal piano teachers were Joseph Battista and Menahem Pressler; his composition teachers included Bernard Heiden, Iannis Xenakis, Juan Orrego-Salas, and John Eaton.
After brief teaching engagements at Indiana University, Radford College (Virginia), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Cameron-Wolfe moved to New York City, where he performed and composed for several major ballet and modern dance companies, including the Joffrey Ballet and the Jose Limon Company. In 1978 he began a 23-year Professorship at Purchase College, State University of New York, teaching music theory and history, composition, and music resources for choreographers. He resigned in 2002 - while he could still walk and think - in order to dedicate his life to the piano and to composing.
As a composer, one of his particular interests is micro-opera, a very short theatrical work of 5 to 15 minutes duration, developed through the collaboration of composer, writer (preferably a poet), a scenic/costume designer (preferably a visual artist), and a videographer. The work is intended to be staged in small spaces and could be broadcast on television or the web. See Cameron-Wolfe's Composition Catalogue below, where his micro-operas are marked ***.
As a pianist, Cameron-Wolfe has in recent years focused on the "missing links", composers of the early 20th century who provided the transition from late Romanticism into post-World War II "sound art" but whose music is now seldom heard. Examples in his current repertoire include works by Leo Ornstein, Dane Rudhyar (with whom he studied and whose music he has recorded on the Furious Artisans label), and Charles Ives.
Devoted to the promotion of modern classical music (which he prefers to call “sound artâ€), Cameron-Wolfe has served as an administrator for several musical organizations: Friends of American Music (1974 to the present), the New Mexico Music Festival (1978-82), Music from Angel Fire (1984), The Charles Ives Center for American Music (1990-92), and as Executive Director of the American branch of CESAME: the Center for Soviet/American Musical Exchange (1989-93).
He now lives in the mountains of northern New Mexico, where he teaches piano and composition, writes music articles for Horse Fly, a monthly journal of politics and culture [*ARTICLES REPRINTED HERE IN MY BLOG*], and hosts a monthly three-hour “Sunday Morning [Un]Classics†radio show (dominated by 20th-century music).
His current projects include the recording and editing of two CDs – one of his own compositions, the other showcasing his unique piano repertoire of music by lesser-known 20th-century composers. Additionally, he is serving as a consultant for the summer 2008 Summit Music Festival [Tarrytown, New York] and he is on the Advisory Board of Choreo Teatro, brainstorming on the design and development of a performing arts/art gallery in a 25,000-square-foot one-time factory building on the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. If that were not already a full plate, he has recently been engaged as Co-Editor of FULCRUM: an annual of poetry and aesthetics, which will devote approximately one-third of its 500-600-page 2008 issue to new (and old) directions in contemporary classical music. The book will be linked to a world-map website at which music by composers from throughout the world can be heard.
Cameron-Wolfe’s 2006 composition A Measure of Love and Silence, a cantata based on the poetry of Tatyana Apraksina (set in both Russian and English translation) will be premiered in June of 2008 at the American Composers Alliance [ACA] Festival, with the possibility of it also being performed in St. Petersburg, Russia soon thereafter. He is currently composing an orchestral work with prominent piano part, to be titled ARQ (a Noah’s Ark of the near future), inspired by the biblical Book of Revelation. Also, a violin work, commissioned from him for a March 31, 2008 premiere performance at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, has recently been completed, its title: ARQ: Region III - Refuge.
In 2004 Cameron-Wolfe performed in Taos, Berlin (at "Simile"), and in the "Moscow Autumn" Festival. In 2006 he played in the Astrakhan "International Music Days" Festival (in southern Russia), and gave a "salon" concert in London. He is preparing for an autumn 2008 piano tour, with dates already set in Oldenburg, Germany and Tampere, Finland. Negotiations are in progress for additional performances in the UK, Sweden, Russia, Bulgaria, and the Netherlands. Half of the concert will be previewed in Taos, New Mexico on February 29 (his dear departed father's birthday).
PIANO REPERTOIRE [2005-08]
J. S. Bach - Fantasy and Double Fugue in A minor, BWV 904
Richard Cameron-Wolfe - Code of Un-Silence
Violeta Dinescu - Sonnenstrahl & Torre di Si
Morton Feldman - (several)
William Flanagan - Sonata
Thomas de Hartmann - Sonata 2
Jean Hure - Sonata 2
Charles Ives - from the First Sonata
Nikolai Miaskovsky - Sonata 2 in F-minor, Op. 13
Federico Mompou - (several)
Leo Ornstein - Impressions of Notre Dame
Dane Rudhyar - (several)
Erik Satie - Uspud (& several)
Florent Schmitt - Cortege des Adorateurs du Feu
Mark So - Lilacs (2007)
COMPOSITION CATALOGUE
POST-NEW YORK
ARQ - for orchestra (2007 - in progress)
ARQ: Region III - Refuge - for violin and piano 4-hands (2008)
A Measure of Love and Silence - cantata [soprano/baritone] (2006)
Burning Questions - for violin, cello & piano (2004)
[period of de-composing]
NEW YORK YEARS
Lapis Lazuli - for flute & piano (1996)
*** Heretic - melodrama for solo guitarist (1994/rev.2005)
Death and Sex: with and/or by String Quartet - opera (1993/unfinished)
*** Lonesome Dove: A True Story - tenor saxophonist & dancer (1992)
*** ..as he seemed to appear to the beast.. - solo percussionist (1991)
Time Refracted - for cello & piano (1990)
Los Caminos de Paxil - opera (1985-1988; abandoned & destroyed)
Kyrie (Mantra) III - for flute and guitar (1984)
A Song Built from Fire - for singing pianist (1984)
Toccata [In Memoriam William Kapell] - for piano solo (1983)
Invocations of the Aetherwind - for prepared piano (1982)
Reconciliation: Deliberations on Stravinsky - chamber orchestra (1981)
Moonwatch - for percussion ensemble (1981)
Labyrinths - song cycle for high voice, cello & piano (1980/rev.1990)
Listen to Me - 7 songs & choruses for the Gertrude Stein play (1980)
Akhenaten - for prepared piano, 2 performers (1979)
Oceanis - for clarinet & piano (1977)
That is to say... - for two singers & percussion (1977)
Kyrie (Mantra) II - for flute & prepared piano (1976/rev.1984)
Beware the Jubjub Bird - 6 songs for the Off-Broadway play (1976)
Homage to Picasso - for flute, clarinet, horn & piano (1976)
Solaris - for prepared piano, 2 performers (1975)
Portrait [Wisconsin Death Trip] - for amplified flute, cello & piano (1975)
Celebration of.... - for piano solo (1974)
UNIVERSITY YEARS
*** Through a Glass Darkly - for soprano & baritone (1974/rev.1986)
Eyewitness Report on the Death of Surrealism - chorus/perc. (1973)
Four Dangerous Myths - for 16 sounders, 4 movers, & critic (1973)
Kyrie (Mantra) I - for flute trio (1972/rev.1975)
Phoenix-Flight [AKA Fresh-Squeezed] - for trumpet, viola & harp (1972)
The Feast of Ortolans - incidental music for the play (1971)
*** The Awakening - for soprano & narrator (1971)
Buzzards - musique concrete (1971/rev.1974)
The Killing of Sister George - incidental music for the play (1970)
Mountainspell - for piano (1970)
*** MeMarie - melodrama for soprano alone (1970)
The Initiate in the Dark Cycle - cantata [soprano/male chorus] (1969)
Diplomacy [AKA "Flirt"] - game for two players (1969/rev.2007)
Variations and "Liebestod" - for clarinet solo (1969)
Duo for Violin and Cello (1968)
Elegy - for piano solo (1968)
Death - for narrator, bassoon, trombone & contrabass (1968)
Lethe - for soprano and piano (1967)
