Steve Antosca
Steve Antosca has a Master’s degree in Computer Music Composition from The Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. He has been Adjunct Assistant Professor of Composition at George Mason University and is currently Artistic Director and composer member of contemporary music forum/VERGE ensemble, the new music ensemble in residence at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The ensemble has recently been described by the Washington Post as putting “modern classical music in front of the public with more dedication and skill than any other group in Washington.”
In 2007, Mr. Antosca was awarded a McKim Fund commission from the Library of Congress and a Fromm Fund commission from Harvard. For the McKim, he will compose kairos ~ time outside of time for violin, harpsichord and computer in celebration of Elliott Carters’ 100th birthday. kairos will be premiered by Lina Bahn, violin and Lura Johnson, harpsichord on December 11, 2008 at the Library of Congress Coolidge Auditorium. For the Fromm, he is composing a work for cello and real-time computer processing. elements ≃ five transfigurations for cello and computer will be premiered by cellist Tobi Werner at Garth Newel Music Center.
He has recently received a commission from the New York Miniaturist Ensemble to compose a work for clarinet, violin, and piano.
As Artistic Director of cmf/VERGE ensemble, he was awarded an NEA grant in 2007 to present a festival of new music in Washington. As part of this series, he collaborated with composer Roger Reynolds and percussionist Steven Schick to produce Sanctuary, a major world premiere by Reynolds for percussion and real-time computer processing. Sanctuary was presented in November 2007 under the Calder mobile in the Atrium of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in conjunction with the Robert Rauschenberg exhibit “Let the World In.”
He is currently collaborating with composer Morton Subotnick and the Library of Congress to analyze the technological and compositional aspect of several of the major technology works of Subotnick housed in the permanent collection at the Library.
Mr. Antosca has worked with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian to present landmark concerts of new music by Native American composers for their Classical Native festivals in 2006 and 2007.
Mr. Antosca has been guest composer at the Southeastern Composer’s League 1997 Festival of New Music and at Radford University’s New Horizons 2002 and 2005 Festivals. He has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. His work shadowland is represented in the MIT publication The Csound Book. He has been a regular guest lecturer at the University of Maryland as part of their College Park Scholars program and has been a guest lecturer at the Escuela Superior de Musica in Mexico City.
He has received numerous grants for the creation of new compositions and for teaching technology including awards from the US Department of Education for a multi-year teacher education project. He has been an Artist-in-Residence with the Music Department at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, working with young musicians interested in incorporating technology in their music.
Mr. Antosca’s compositions have been performed in the Washington area at the Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Institute, National Gallery of Art, Dance Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Phillips Collection, Radford University, George Mason University, George Washington University, University of Virginia and University of Maryland. In New York, his dance works have been premiered at Pace University at their 1995 Dance Festival and in 1999 at the Joyce SoHo. He has appeared at The Stone with VERGE ensemble.
In January 2001, Mr. Antosca produced the “Exploring the American Piano” concert for the Smithsonian’s Piano 300 Exhibition, celebrating 300 years of the piano. He premiered his work invisible landscape for piano and conducted electronics, which was regarded by the Washington Post as “the highlight of the evening.” His composition something else for interactive computer and percussion premiered at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in April, 2005 and was described as “the evening’s dazzler…joining real-time computer-processed sounds with percussion.”
Past commissions include a composition for dance, computer processed audio, and text premiered in September 2002 at the Kennedy Center as part of their Local Dance Commissioning Project (revised as such a pure force) and a commission for pianist Laurie Hudicek for traces of spirit whispers for piano and computer processed audio, premiered at the Kennedy Center in September 2003. In 2006 he was commissioned by the Johansen International Competition to create a work for young violin, viola and ‘cello virtuosi.
His work One becomes Two, premiered by violinist Lina Bahn at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC in March 2007, was described by the Washington Post as “the afternoon's most exciting composition. It was performed with knowing sensitivity by Bahn, her violin plugged into Antosca's laptop, her fiddle generating ambient electronically controlled responses that were repeated or transformed into vaporous, liquid reflections of her sound.” One becomes Two received its European premiere in Paris at the Festival de musique Américaine in May 2007.
Mr. Antosca’s website is steveantosca.com.