Christian A. Gentry, an Arizona native, writes music for a variety of instrumentation and genres including, orchestra, choir, art song, chamber music, film, theater and electroacoustic music. Some of his works have been played and/or recorded by Canyonlands New Music Ensemble, Arsenal Trio, Emily Hindrichs (soprano), East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Juventas, White Rabbit, the Lydian String Quartet, New York Virtuoso Singers, VERGE Ensemble, ICE and Talujon . He was a composer fellow at June in Buffalo, Wellesley Composers Conference and the Norfolk New Music Workshop. He received a Barlow Endowment Composition Commission to write Flux Flummoxed for Jihye Chang (piano) and Benjamin Sung (violin) which premiered in the spring of 2010 and will appear in a recording summer 2011. Recent premieres include Corps Sonore for percussionist Bill Solomon and riff(s) and/or transfiguration(s) for trombonist Ben Herrington, with pianist Geoffrey Burleson and percussionist John Ferrari and Tableaus performed by Talujon. He is currently working on his dissertation which explores selected pieces from Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragmente, Op.24. He received his BM at the University of Utah and MM at the University of Louisville, where he was a Bomhard Fellow. He is now a Mildred and Herbert Lee Graduate Fellow at Brandeis University where he is pursuing a PhD in Music Theory and Composition. His teachers include Morris Rosenzweig, Miguel Chuaqui, Steve Rouse, John Gibson, Martin Boykan, Eric Chasalow, David Rakowski and Yu-Hui Chang. He resides in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife Laci, son Berkeley and dog McDuff.
Christian Gentry
composer
Hello Christian.
Wanted to say again it was nice to meet you yesterday while waiting to enter the BEAMS marathon. (I was the person you spoke with about toy pianos, Stockhausen and Bunk’s scratch-o-lin) I don’t get the chance to talk contemporary music very often as I live away from the city and few people in my town have ever heard of Cage, Stockhausen, etc.
I have to say your piece was most impressive. Bill’s playing was stupendous. The tutti phrases he had to nail with the prerecorded parts were fantastic and, I imagine, challenging to any percussionist. Also, I liked the way your piece began to ‘swing’ at times. I think it was Carl Ruggles who said that music must surge and your piece had that element.
Regards,
Derek Gunn
Derek-
I greatly appreciate your compliments. Hope to see you around some more. I am glad you liked the concert.
Nice website, Christian!
If you want to write a solo piano etude ever, I suggest you do it with an interval of 6th or .. whole notes. Or..5th! (will email you more about it later)