Richard Brooks
From Philosopedia
Richard Brooks (26 December 1942 - )
Brooks, a musician and composer who was born in Syracuse, New York, spent his youth in Windsor near Binghamton, where he graduated in 1961 from Alice Freeman Palmer High School.
He received his B.S. degree in Music Education from the Potsdam College; his M.A. in Composition from SUNY Binghamton; and his Ph. D. in Composition from New York University.
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Biography
From 1975 to 2004 Brooks was a professor on the music faculty of Nassau Community College, chairing the department for twenty-two years.
From 1977 to 1982 he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Society of University Composers (now the Society of Composers, Inc.), on which he continues to serve as the Producer of the SCI Compact Disk Series.
In 1981 he was elected to the Board of Governors of the American Composers Alliance. After serving two terms as Secretary and three terms as Vice-President, he was elected President in the fall of 1993.
From 1992 to 1998 he was a member of the Junior/Community College Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Music.
Brooks has received a major grant from the SUNY Research Foundation (for composition), a Composer Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, an American Music Center grant, and several Meet the Composer awards. In 1994 he received a commission for Quintet for Oboe (Sax) and Strings from the New York State Music Teachers National Association; the premiere performance took place at the NYSMTNA Conference in Ithaca, NY in October 1994. Landscape...with Grace, commissioned for the twentieth-anniversary season of the Kent Philharmonia Orchestra in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was premiered on April 21, 1996. Preludes to Books I & II of Paradise Lost were commissioned for January 2001 by The Lark Ascending, who commissioned him again for Four Miniatures, for viola and guitar, in 2004. A commission from Elaine Comparone and Harpsichord Unlimited in 2001 resulted in Cassation, for harpsichord, strings and percussion.
He was commissioned again by the Kent Philharmonia for a new work, Trumpet/Flugelhorn and Orchestra, which premiered in May 2006. In 2008, Capstone Records will include it as a CD.
He has composed over seventy works in all media. His opera for young audiences, Rapunzel, was commissioned by the Tri-Cities Opera (Binghamton) in 1971 and has been mounted also by the Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia, Wolf Trap Farm Park, and the Denver Symphony/Central City Singers. Most recently, it received sixty-five performances by the Cincinnati Opera during the 2002-2004 season.
A full-length opera, Moby Dick, was completed in 1987, and a second full length opera, Robert and Hal, was given a workshop performance in October 2004 by The Lark Ascending. Sonata for violin and piano (1973), is published in Vol. XI of the ASUC Journal of Music Scores and recorded on Record no. 5 of the ASUC Record Series (Advance label). Prelude and Lament for wind quintet (1970) and Suite for Percussion (1975) are recorded on the Capstone label (CPS-8601). Chorale Variations for Horns and Strings is recorded on compact disk by the Constanta Symphony Orchestra (Capstone CPS-8627 "Tonus Tomis"). Seascape; An Overture to Moby Dick and Landscape...with Grace are recorded by the Polish National Radio Orchestra and the Kent Philharmonia, respectively, on Capstone Records (CPS-8634 "And the Eagle Flies...").
In 2006, Brooks and composer Reynold Weidenaar started Capstone, their own record label. He described the label's mission:
- I'm very devoted to the concept of helping American composers. I will not do a CD that doesn't have a substantial portion of it devoted to American composers, preferably living ones. I have sometimes stretched the definition to cover composers who we generally don't think of as American but who actually lived here for a long time, for example Hindemith, who actually was an American citizen while he lived here. But generally that's my aim. It's a labor of love, I'm a composer myself, and I know so many talented people out there whose music needs to be heard.
Works
Works by Brooks, including audio and score, are found online.
Operas
Operas by Brooks, including audio samples, are found online.
Performances
Starting in 1971 and continuing to the present, performances by Brooks are found online.
Recordings
Recordings by Brooks are found online.
Commissions and Awards
Brooks has received numerous awards.
