Christopher Rouse is known for orchestral scores that possess a driving, sometimes brutal energy. In recent years, a new current of lyricism has emerged in his music. His scores have been performed by every major orchestra in the U.S.
Information
- Location:
- Baltimore, MD
- Birthday:
- February 15, 1949
Photos
2 of 4 albumsSee All
Christopher Rouse fan albumUpdated on July 23, 2008 at 1:29am
Aspen 'Friandises' June 27th 2008Created on July 15, 2008 at 4:26am
Notes
3 of 6 notesSee All
- Christopher Rouse By Geoffrey Himes 2:36am Aug 2
- Christopher Rouse at Cabrillo: Concerto for Orchestra 2:29am Aug 2
- Christopher Rouse: Going to Eleven 10:29pm Jul 22
Events
3 past eventsSee All
- . A Hear & Now Concert Roberts...
Avery Fisher Hall
Thursday, October 30 at 7:30pm - Concerto for Orchestra by Chri...
Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
Friday, August 1 at 8:00pm - Friandises
Benedict Music Tent
Friday, June 27 at 6:00pm
Christopher Rouse fan page
A live stream of Christopher Rouses's Oboe Concerto premiere will be broadcast on the classical station of MPR.org on Friday, February 6th at 8pm Central time. The concerto will start around 8:20 or 8:25.
Here's the link:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/s
Click on the "listen" button.
Enjoy!
Christopher Rouse fan page
BSO LAUNCHES NEW “OFF THE CUFF” SERIES
Featuring Music Director Marin Alsop in Engaging
Talk‐Conduct Format, Saturday, November 22
Standard Friday and Sunday programs feature program of
Bach, Rouse and Tchaikovsky.
Originally premiered at Marin Alsop’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz,
California..., the Baltimore Symphony will perform the East Coast premiere of Baltimore‐native
Christopher Rouse’s Concerto for Orchestra on November 21 and 23. The piece is the product of a long
association with between Rouse, Maestra Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony. “As is typically the case
with this genre, it is the members of the orchestra who are the soloists,” explains Rouse. “Each is given
passages requiring everything from singing lyricism to challenging virtuosity, and this work is essentially
‘about’ allowing each player a chance to shine.”
Christopher Rouse fan page
Christopher Rouse Named Musical America’s Composer of the Year
By Sarah Baird
Media & Public Relations Executive
November 18, 2008
Christopher Rouse has been named Composer of the Year by Musical America for 2009. Also recognized at the 2009 Musical America Awards at Lincoln Center next month will be Yo-Yo Ma as Musician o...f the Year, Marin Alsop as Conductor of the Year, Stephanie Blythe as Vocalist of the Year, and the Pacifica Quartet as Ensemble of the Year.
Rouse is celebrating his 60th birthday this season with performances around the globe, including the February 5 world premiere of his Oboe Concerto, led by Osmo Vänskä with the Minnesota Orchestra and soloist Basil Reeve. The composer will be in Minnesota to celebrate the premiere, which takes place just prior to his actual birthday (February 15)
Christopher Rouse fan page
Bernstein: Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah
Carter: Of Rewaking
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Rouse: Rapture
Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008, 7:30 PM
Friday, Oct. 31, 2008, 8:00 PM
Saturday, Nov. 1, 2008, 8:00 PM
Soloist: Michelle DeYoung, Steven Stucky
Conductor: David Robertso
CHRISTOPHER ROUSE (born in 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland)
Rapture (20...00)
Jokingly called “Mr. Sunshine” or, as Christopher Rouse admitted to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in 2000, “typecast in people’s minds as a kind of prince of darkness, I am known for writing very dark, disturbing music. It just happened that every time I had a piece to write, somebody died whose death had a big effect on me. But I was aware after I wrote the last of that batch of pieces, which was in memory of my mother, that I didn’t have any further need to do those. Nobody had died on me; my life had gone death-free,” he says. So he consciously decided to compose something that would be on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from dark. “I am interested in extremes. I am not interested in writing pieces of music about a plate of ham and eggs.” The result was the one-movement joyful and light-filled Rapture, commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and premiered there in May 2000. “[I intended] to depict a progression to an ever more blinding ecstasy, but the entire work inhabits a world devoid of darkness.” Christopher Rouse unfurls a tapestry of continually changing sonorities and orchestral colors—progressing from the woodwinds to the brass to the strings, while at the same time “gradually increasing tempi; it begins quite slowly but…proceeds to speed up incrementally until the breakneck tempo of the final moments is reached.”
Christopher Rouse - New York Philharmonic
Time:7:30PM Thursday, October 30th
Location:Avery Fisher Hall
Christopher Rouse fan page
Here are two excellent video interviews from the New York Philharmonic website:
http://nyphil.org/attend/season/index.cf
This weekend Christopher Rouse will get to hear his most popular composition, the Flute Concerto, played by his hometown band, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. A first cousin, once removed, of legendary developer James Rouse, the 59-year-old composer grew up in Mount Washington...
Christopher Rouse’s 60th birthday season begins with the world premiere of his latest work, Concerto for Orchestra, at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. ...
Christopher Rouse fan page
This very First Night is itself full of firsts. Composer Stephen McNeff of the U.K. will join you for the U.S. Premiere of Sinfonia, a fast-paced concert opener commissioned and premiered by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Marin Alsop. Twenty-eight year old composer Eric Lindsay hails from a bit... closer to home—born in Santa Cruz and raised on Whidbey Island, Washington—his music is described by Other Minds’ Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian as “lush, evocative, with unusual lines...completely inventive." Tonight Lindsay is with you for the World Premiere performance of his newly revised Darkness Made Visible, a work described as a collision of two opposing musical forces: one angular, aggressive and disjointed; the other conservative, harkening back to a “Lisztian bravura.” “[Matt Haimovitz]… is one of the most adventurous classical musicians out there.”
—Boston Globe
Renowned cellist Matt Haimovitz has become a legend in the music world for pushing beyond conventions—be it performances in surprising venues or collaborations with unexpected partners around unpredicted genres. Tonight he makes his Festival debut with composer David Sanford’s Scherzo Grosso, a “classical-funk-jazz-bebop-hip-hopping” work originally composed for cello and big band, and then rescored for full orchestra. The evening ends with a Festival milestone: the World Premiere performance of the third in a series of recent Festival commissions. Pulitzer-prize winner Christopher Rouse is among the most respected composers of his generation, and among Marin Alsop’s favorites. His Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by a group of Cabrillo Festival patrons in honor of the Festival’s longtime staff members. Four composers in the house, a Festival commission, World and U.S. Premieres, and a stellar soloist make this a First Night to remember!
“[Rouse’s] music is relevant, visceral, moving and thrilling—music that can change people, music that makes time stop; it is, pure and simple, great art.”
—Marin Alsop
(The 2008 opening night begins with an outdoor Pre-Concert Talk by Marin Alsop and a special ticketed dinner prepared by Feast for a King and served alfresco at the Civic Auditorium. Reservations required.)
Concerto for Orchestra by Christopher Rouse
Time:8:00PM Friday, August 1st
Location: Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
Christopher Rouse: Going to Eleven Published: July 1, 2008 A conversation in Rouse's home with Frank J. Oteri Baltimore, Maryland...
Christopher Rouse fan page
A conversation in Rouse's home with Frank J. Oteri
Baltimore, Maryland
February 8, 2008—6:00 p.m.
Transcribed by Julia Lu
Videotaped by Trudy Chan
Video presentation by Randy Nordschow
Length:9:47
