Schirmer Signs Avner Dorman a Month After His 30th Birthday
|
G. Schirmer, Inc. has announced an exclusive agreement with the Israeli-American composer Avner Dorman. With the signing, Dorman becomes both the newest and youngest composer on the G. Schirmer roster.
Dorman, who spoke with us by phone this afternoon, said: “This is the greatest opportunity and it’s a dream come true. It is very important for me as a composer to communicate to other people. I don’t want to just write for the drawer. It’s really exciting to have a partner that’s been around for a while. This amazing publisher of a distinguished group of composers cares about the music that I write and will now help me communicate this music out to the world. Everything I write will now be available to such a large community. What composer needs more than that?”
Born in 1975, Dorman obtained his masters degree from Tel Aviv University. He majored in music, musicology, and physics, and worked with former Soviet composer Josef Bardanashvili. Currently enrolled in the doctoral program at Juilliard, Dorman studies with Schirmer composer John Corigliano. He has also been a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. At age 25, Dorman became the youngest composer to win Israel’s prestigious Prime Minister’s Award. His Variations without a Theme, premiered by Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic in November 2003, has won ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer’s Award and the 2004 Best Composition of the Year award from the Israeli performing rights society, ACUM. His catalogue includes concertos, orchestral pieces, chamber music, vocal music, song cycles, and works for solo piano, as well as music for ballet and film. Bat-Dor Dance Company has commissioned a number of works —Accord/Discord (1999), Sudden Void (2000), and Falafel (2001)—and the Peridance Ensemble commissioned and premiered his Dreams & Demons in New York City in 2003.
Dorman’s music has been featured at the Young Euro-Classic Festival in Berlin, Expo 2000 in Hanover, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and Lincoln Center. He has also composed a Concerto for Violin and Rock Band, which was performed by the INNOVATION rock band, with Eyal Shiloach as soloist. Dorman’s Udacrep Akubrad for two percussionists is available on CD from the Jerusalem Music Center. Upcoming performances include his Piccolo Concerto, with soloist Lior Eitan and the San Diego Chamber Orchestra, which will be presented on August 13, 2005 in San Diego as part of the 2005 National Flute Association Convention.