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BIOGRAPHY
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A native of Fribourg, Switzerland, Dominique Schafer,
recently awarded a year-long Swiss fellowship to reside
at the Atelier Jean Tinguely of the Cité Internationale
des Arts in Paris, France, is a composer whose breadth
of musical expression encompasses both the acoustic
instrumentations and the electro-acoustic media.
While based in Boston after having lived in Los Angeles
for many years, Dominique’s music has been performed in the USA,
Asia, Latin America and Europe by ensembles and performers such
as the Arditti String Quartet, Dinosaur Annex Ensemble, Ensemble Fa,
Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Talea Ensemble, Frances Marie
Uitti (cello solo piece played with two bows), Alarm will Sound, the
Callithumpian Consort, Orchestre National de Lorraine (France), E-Mex
ensemble (Germany), Modern Art Sextet, Jeremias Schwarzer, and the
California EAR Unit, and at festivals such as Musica Nova Finland, June in Buffalo,
and Festival Archipel Geneva.
Dominique’s compositions have received international recognition,
and he is the recipient of numerous awards, which include the Adelbert Sprague
Composition Award, George Arthur Knight Composition Prize, twice regional winner
of the ASCAP/SCI commission competition, and second prize of the Kempten Orchesterverein
composition competition in Germany, and grants from the American Music Center. He
was also a finalist of the Queen Marie José International Composition Competition,
of the 33rd and 36th International Competition in Electroacoustic Music (Trivium)
Bourges, France, and of the Fifth Seoul International Competition for Composers.
At Festival Archipel Geneva, Dominique’s Ashes in the Air II for tenor recorder
and electronics, a work composed to be projected into an eight-channel surround
space, was premiered. The saxophone and percussion duo piece Triplex Unity was
released by the Yesaroun’ Duo on CD. Dominique has been a repeat participant at
the Acanthes summer festival in France where he studied electronic music led by
the atelier d'informatique musical (IRCAM) in 2004, and where his chamber orchestra
piece Am Rande des Schattens was premiered in 2005. He has also participated in the
composition courses led by Karlheinz Stockhausen in Kürten, Germany. In 2006 Dominique formally
presented his work at the Darmstadt International Courses for New Music.
Dominique holds a PhD degree in Composition from Harvard University, and BA and MA in
Composition from University of California, Los Angeles. His primary mentors in composition
include Paul Reale, Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands, Magnus Lindberg, Ian Krouse, Julian Anderson,
Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough, and Chaya Czernowin. Other studies include electronic music
(with Hans Tutschku), orchestration (with Joshua Fineberg), jazz performance (with Max Jendly),
and film score and conducting (with Jerry Goldsmith). An avid advocate for teaching and communicating
knowledge to young students, Dominique was awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching at
Harvard University two years in a row. In 2010 he joined the faculty of the University of Rhode
Island Music Department, where he has been teaching music theory, aural skills and composition.
Aside from composing and teaching, Dominique is the co-artistic director of the New York- and
Boston-based ensemble ECCE
(East Coast Contemporary Ensemble). His current projects include a work
for the Taipei Chinese Orchestra (premier forthcoming in May, 2012 in Taiwan) and another for the
New York Washington Square Society for Contemporary Music Series concert in March, 2012.
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