Sun 8.14 Reflections

AVNER DORMAN (b. 1975)

Avner Dorman has quickly risen to become one of Israel’s most successful and renowned composers. He completed his doctorate at the Juilliard School where he studied with John Corigliano and his master's degree at Tel Aviv University where he with former Soviet composer Josef Bardanashvili. At the age of 25, he became the youngest composer to win Israel's prestigious Prime Minister's Award for his Ellef Symphony, and that same year he was awarded the Golden Feather Award from ACUM (the Israeli Society of Composers and Publishers). He has three times been awarded the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Award and he has been a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. His Variations Without A Theme won the 2004 Best Composition of the Year award from the Israeli Society of Composers and Publishers. Dorman’s music achieves a rare combination of rigorous compositional construction while preserving the sense of excitement and spontaneity usually associated with Jazz, Rock, or Ethnic Music. His unique approach to rhythm and timbre has attracted some of the world’s leading conductors, including Zubin Mehta, Marin Alsop, Asher Fisch, and Simone Young to bring his music to audiences of the Israel Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the Hamburg Philharmonic, and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, among others. Famous for his innovative use of percussion, Dorman’s two percussion concerti are quickly becoming staples of the repertoire. Zubin Mehta led the premiere of his double percussion concerto, Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! at the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. His percussion concerto, Frozen in Time, tore audiences off their seats in an overwhelming standing ovation at Hamburg Philharmonic’s world premiere, with Martin Grubinger as percussion soloist. Cabrillo audiences were introduced to Avner Dorman in 2008 when the Festival performed the west coast premiere his Variations Without a Theme quickly followed by his Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! in 2009. Dorman’s Reflections will be given its world premiere on August 14 at Mission San Juan Bautista and is dedicated to Marin Alsop on her 20th anniversary as music director at Cabrillo.

For a complete biography, visit G. Schirmer Publishing.

Photo by: r.r. jones