BIOGRAPHY

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Louis Karchin (born, Sept. 8, 1951 in Philadelphia) began studying piano and writing short musical compositions at age 6. Over the course of a career spanning four decades, he has amassed a portfolio of over 60 compositions, appeared as conductor with numerous performing ensembles, directed several concert series, and overseen the formation of a graduate program in Music Composition at New York University. His works have been performed world-wide, and have garnered distinguished honors, including two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and Koussevitzky, Barlow, and Fromm commissions. The citation of the Walter N. Hinrichsen Award, presented by the American Academy, praised his Songs of John Keats, as “a striking conception, in which the sonic properties of the poetry interact with musical material in unprecedented fusion.” Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, cited Karchin´s masque, Orpheus, in its 2005 Albany Records release, as one of the year´s best works, and Boston critic Richard Dyer singled out his instrumental trio, Rustic Dances as a “best of Boston” pick for 2001.

Recent performances of Mr. Karchin´s orchestral music have included his Chesapeake Festival Overture, premiered at the Alba Music Festival in Italy, in June of 2007, and repeated shortly thereafter by the Chesapeake Orchestra at the outdoor River Festival of St. Mary´s College Maryland, before an audience of over 3000. Karchin´s chamber opera, Romulus, received a fully-staged premiere in May of 2007, in a three-way collaboration between the Guggenheim Museum, American Opera Projects, and the Washington Square Ensemble, and featured acclaimed singers Katrina Thurman, Steven Ebel, Thomas Meglioranza and Wilbur Pauley. The premiere of his vocal-instrumental song cycle, Orpheus, by the Earplay Ensemble of San Francisco, highly praised by music critic Jules Langert, showcased the dancing and choreography of Angela Jones and L. Jonathan Collins, and the singing of baritone Dominic Inferrera. A Fiftieth Birthday Concert of the composer´s music in September of 2002, at Merkin Hall, included Karchin´s 25-minute vocal-instrumental cycle, American Visions, with the work´s poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, presenting a birthday tribute to the composer after the concert.

Mr. Karchin´s music has also been performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Louisville Orchestra, the Group for Contemporary Music, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Da Capo Chamber Players, among many other groups, and has been championed by soloists such as Fred Sherry, Rolf Schulte, Lucy Shelton, Elizabeth Farnum, Stephen Gosling, and Marilyn Nonken. The British music journal, Contemporary Music Review singled out Karchin as one of twenty-five of the most exciting American composers born in the decade of the 1950´s, and Karchin was chosen as one of 52 composers selected to represent New York at the turn of the Millennium in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center´s “Great Day in New York” Festival at Alice Tully Hall.

Mr. Karchin has been an active conducting presence on the New York musical scene, regarding this activity as an important corollary to composing. He appears frequently to direct music of colleagues, often in pieces receiving their first or second performances. His regular conducting duties with the Chamber Players of the League-ISCM and the Washington Square Ensemble were augmented in 2009 with the formation of the Orchestra of the League of Composers. League President David Gordon, flutist Sue Ann Kahn, and Mr. Karchin, as conductor, collaborated on planning the orchestra´s inaugural concert, which took place at Miller Theatre on June 10, 2009, and included works by Christopher Dietz, Alvin Singleton, Elliott Carter, Julia Wolfe, and Charles Wuorinen.

Teaching has also been an important part of Mr. Karchin´s career. Appointed Assistant Professor of Music in 1979 at NYU, Mr. Karchin, now Professor of Music, established the first graduate program in composition for the Faculty of Arts and Science Music Department. Over one six year period, students in this select program were the recipients of six BMI and ASCAP awards, among many other significant honors.

Karchin´s music is available on New World, CRI and Albany labels, with new discs released in both 2005 and 2007. Forthcoming is a release of Romulus on Naxos Records. Thirty-one of the composer´s works are published by C. F. Peters Corporation. Other works are published by American Composers Alliance.

Mr. Karchin lives in New Jersey, with his wife, Julie Sirota Karchin, and children Marisa and Lindsay.

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Described by The New Yorker as a composer of “fearless eloquence,” Louis Karchin has been honored with performances of his music by such groups as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Louisville Orchestra, the Group for Contemporary Music, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and soloists such as Rolfe Schulte, Fred Sherry, and Lucy Shelton. Recently, his opera Romulus was premiered at the Peter B. Lewis Theatre of the Guggenheim Museum, and will be released shortly on CD by Naxos Records. He is currently finishing a Chamber Symphony for 14 instruments, and a new work for clarinet and percussion, for Jean Kopperud and Tom Kolor, as part of Jean Kopperud´s second “Project X” series of commissions. Upcoming is a new work for the Network for New Music in Philadelphia, and a new opera based on Charlotte Brontë´s novel, Jane Eyre. Karchin´s music is recorded on New World, Albany and CRI labels, and thirty-one of his compositions are published by C. F. Peters Corporation. He is the recipient of Koussevitzky and Barlow Foundation Commissions, and two awards each from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. A frequent conductor of new music, Mr. Karchin introduced, on June 10, the Orchestra of the League of Composers, at Miller Theatre, in its inaugural program. He is Professor of Music at New York University.