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 | | | | Steven Block |
| | | Born in New York City in 1952, Steven Block is active as a composer, theorist, music critic, and performer. In 1973, he received his B.A. in Composition from Antioch College, which was followed by an M.A. in Composition from the University of Iowa in 1975, and then by a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory from the University of Pittsburgh in 1981. Listed among his principal teachers are David Stock, Robert Morris, Franco Donatoni, and Luciano Berio.
With performances of his compositions across the United States, Australia, and in Paris, Block’s music has garnered multiple grants, awards, and commissions from organizations which include the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Charles Ives Center for American Music, the International Society for Contemporary Music, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. He was the recipient of an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship and a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. Block is also a frequent lecturer on composition and theory at universities and at national and regional conferences, and his articles on music criticism and theory have appeared in publications such as Musical America and Perspectives of New Music.
Major entries in Block’s catalogue of compositions include the three-act opera The Tumbler of God, the two-act musical theater work The Ballet Man, an instrumental trilogy (Puttin’ it Together, Thelonious Rex, and Rockin’ Pneumonia) which—as described by the composer—combines “contemporary language with more ‘popular’ styles,” a piano sonata, and two string quartets, the second of which commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. Most of Block’s scores are published by American Composers Edition.
Currently, Dr. Block coordinates the music composition and theory program at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. |
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