Roger Zare Music

Roger Zare, Composer

I am a composition grad student at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. On this page, you will find information about me and my compositions including some sheet music samples and mp3s. I’ll be continually updating this page with my recent compositions and performances. If you are interested in performing one of my compositions or commissioning a new piece, I’d be very happy to work with you, and I can be reached at Roger@rogerzare.com.

Permanent Links:
·Purchasing information for Lift-Off (orchestra and wind ensemble versions)
·Senior Recital recordings and videos, including "Dark and Stormy Night" for piano with ping pong balls
·Green Flash recording and video
·Wind Trio video ·Disintegration video

News:

5/4/08: My newest composition, Disintegration (flute, clarinet, acoustic and electric guitars, violin, cello), was just premiered on Saturday the 3rd. It's an extremely difficult piece and the performers did a great job. I have a video of the performance up on youtube and you can watch it here.

4/30/08: I've just posted an mp3 of my Kansas City string orchestra premiere from February - Mare Tranquillitatis. You can listen to it here. Jeffrey Bishop and his kids did a great job with a complicated piece, and I thouroughly enjoyed being in Kansas City to see it premiered. I hope you enjoy the recording!

4/24/08: The premiere of my recent Wind Trio went extremely well on the 17th. Fourth Corner did a remarkable job learning and rehearsing the piece, really making it their own. I've uploaded some videos of the premiere on their own page here.

3/28/08: I received some very exciting news recently. I was chosen, along with 5 other composers, to participate in the American Composers Orchestra Underwood Readings, taking place on May 6-7 in New York, in the Skirball center at NYU. They will rehearse and have a run-through of Green Flash. Along with receiving a great recording of the piece, I will take part in some workshops related to music business and the orchestra world. A press release came out about a week ago.

Also, in more local news, I won the Sarasota Music Archive Donald N. Morrison Composition Competition with my recently completed work, "Sonata in One Movement" for violin and piano. It will be performed at the Selby Public Library in Sarasota, FL on May 11 (Mothers' Day) at 2:30 by Paul Wolfe, violin, and Dwight Oarr, piano.

2/29/08: My first semester and a half at Peabody have been very eventful and productive. I've finished four new compositions - a Wind Trio for flute, clarinet, and bassoon; a Nocturne for solo piano; a single-movement sonata for violin and piano; and a movement for piano trio that I had been working on since last April. I have info for each of those compositions up on my composition pages.

The performance of Lift-Off by the USC Thornton Wind Ensemble with H Robert Reynolds conducting last October went extremely well. I have created a page dedicated to promoting Lift-Off here, and you can listen to both the orchestral and wind ensemble recordings that I have. I also have purchase information and an instrumentation list for Lift-Off on that page.

The premiere of the string work commissioned by Jeffrey Bishop last summer was successful as well. I decided to name the piece "Mare Tranquillitatis" (Sea of Tranquility) and I will have a recording posted as soon as I receive one.

Also, I have a couple upcoming performances of my works in Baltimore later this Spring. Fourth Corner will be premiering the Wind Trio I wrote on April 17. I am also currently working on an as-of-yet unnamed piece for a chamber music seminar for flute, clarinet, guitar, violin, and cello that will be performed in early May. Information will be posted on my performances page when it is available.

9/9/07: I'm getting ready to start classes at Peabody tomorrow and have some good news. Over the summer, I was informed that H Robert Reynolds of the USC Thornton Wind Ensemble decided to program my wind ensemble version of Lift-Off on Sunday, October 21 at 4 PM in Bovard Auditorium on USC campus! For more information, click here.

Also for anyone who will be in LA later this month, the wonderful pianist Grace Zhao is going to be performing Dark and Stormy Night for piano and ping pong balls with Geoffrey Pope as the obligato page turner on September 23rd at 3 PM on the USC campus.
Also, "Etude," one of the student films that I scored, is going to be screened at the Cinema City International Film Festival in Hollywood at the Universal City Walk AMC theatres on Thursday, September 27 at 4:30 PM.

6/15/07: I've been on the radio and the news recently. I was interviewed by Susan Giles Wantuck at WUSF 89.7 a few weeks ago. I believe you can still listen to this interview on the WUSF website, but if you have any problems, email me and I can send it to you in a different form. I also was featured in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in a write-up that focuses on Dark and Stormy Night and my future at Peabody.

5/24/07: The press release about the BMI student composer award is online now, and my trip to New York for the awards banquet was extremely enjoyable. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the video and the mp3 of Green Flash, the orchestral piece that got me the BMI award.
I also just received a commission to write a piece for a very talented high school string orchestra near Kansas City. I'm really happy to be working on a piece like this, as I started my career in composition writing for my own high school orchestra. I'll post more info about this later in the summer.

5/1/07: Today is May 1, the decision day for college acceptance. The big news is that I will be heading to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in the fall to begin studies in the Master of Music program there. I will miss USC, but it was a fabulous four years, full of opportunities. I am very excited to be heading back east where I will study with Chris Theofanidis.
In other news, I was informed recently that I am one of ten winners of the 2007 BMI Student Composer Awards for my work, Green Flash! After the awards ceremony in a few weeks, I will post more about it.

3/17/07: I want to thank everyone who took part in my senior recital last month, performers and audience, for making it a success! For those of you who missed it, I have just put up a new page where you can play recordings of the whole thing and videos of a couple of the pieces. Check it out here and enjoy. If you have any problems with that page, contact me and I will do my best to resolve your issues. I also put up a video of the Green Flash premiere.

2/14/07: Green Flash was a great success! I'm extremely happy with its premiere and have a recording of the whole piece available here. I knew I wrote an extremely challenging work, but the USC symphony pulled it off quite spectacularly.
My senior recital is right around the corner, coming up on Saturday, February 24 at 4 PM in Newman Hall on USC campus. It will feature a wide variety of works, including two wind ensemble selections (Perchance to Dream and Lift-Off) and a piece for piano with ping pong balls and obligato page turner. It should be fun.
In addition to that, I'm happy to announce that Lift-Off will receive two more performances in its original orchestral form after my recital - one at USC by the concert orchestra on April 17, and another in Kansas City sometime in April.

12/8/06: As my penultimate undergraduate semester winds down, I have some good news in the form of big performances coming up. First, on February 8 at 7:30 PM, my brand new orchestral work, Green Flash, is going to close the annual new music for orchestra concert by the USC Thornton Symphony, Donald Crockett guest conducting. Also on Saturday, February 24, at 4 PM, I have my senior composition recital scheduled in Newman Hall on the USC campus. I'm still formulating the program for that event and will have more information about it in January.

11/15/06: On Monday, my latest commission, Lift-Off received its premiere with the Florida West Coast Symphony Youth Philharmonic under the baton of Andrew Lane. It was a great performance and a fantastic evening. The orchestra consisted of the kids sitting side by side with the professional musicians, and the group totalled 100 musicians. I want to thank Andrew Lane and Jim Cliff for commissioning me.

10/7/06: Midterm update - A couple of my compositions are going to be performed soon at USC. On October 22, my duet for horn and cello, now named Spectra will have its world premiere at 4 PM in the Alfred Newman Recital Hall as part of the semesterly Composition Department Showcase. Also Liz King has programmed my three pieces for solo oboe on her senior recital, to be held on November 12 at 4 PM in Jeannette MacDonald Recital Hall (MUS 106).

8/6/06: For the fourth year in a row, I've been awarded a generous scholarship from the Artist Series of Sarasota. I would like to express my thanks to Jerry and Lee Dougherty Ross, Virginia Toulmin, and the Artist Series for continuing to support my musical education.

8/5/06: As the summer winds down, I am happy to report that I have finished the commission for the Youth Philharmonic's upcoming November concert. Entitled "Lift-Off," it should be a rousing and fun way to begin the program. And there is a chance that it may be performed again elsewhere in Florida in the winter; I'll post more on that as soon as I know more about that.

6/11/06: I was privileged enough to have another premiere of one of my works at the Sarasota Music Festival. Students performed the Double Fugue from my wind quartet at the Selby Library auditorium to a full house. They did a magnificent job putting together my challenging movement in just three days. You can listen to it here: Wind Quartet - II. Double Fugue.

5/10/06: I just talked to Andy Lane, the director of the Florida West Coast Symphony Youth Orchestra program, and he's commissioning me to write a short concert opener for the Youth Philharmonic, to be performed on their first concert this fall, on November 13. That concert will combine the Florida West Coast Symphony with the Youth Philharmonic, so a mix of students and professionals will play whatever I decide to write them. I'm very excited!

4/23/06: Recordings from my orchestration readings are up now. I must say the Thornton Symphony is quite a first-class orchestra and they did a fantastic job for under 15 minutes for each reading.

4/12/06: The USC Undergraduate Symposium was today. Creative and scholarly work is displayed and judged and cash prizes are awarded to two people in each of five categories, including the arts. The music school does quite well in this each year, and it did again. I won second prize in arts with The Other Rainbow and one of my colleagues, Paul Dooley, won first prize, also for an orchestral piece.

4/7/06: Official opening of this webpage.

3/30/06: The Academic Honors Convocation was this evening. I received one of four Phi Kappa Phi student recognition awards for Fog and had a great prime rib dinner and a mountain of chocolate for dessert.

3/26/06: The premiere of my new wind ensemble piece, “Perchance to Dream…” went really well. I put up an excerpt from the recording and a sample from the score on my composition page. I’m looking forward to writing more new music for wind ensemble in the future.

3/17/06: I just heard that I won the Sarasota Music Archive Morrison Young Composers Award with my recent movement for piano trio entitled “Northern Lights.” There will be a performance at 2:30 on May 14 in Sarasota, in the Selby Library auditorium.

2/26/06: My composition, “The Other Rainbow,” had its premiere by the New York Youth Symphony in Carnegie Hall. I was chosen as a First Music recipient and was one of three to receive commissions for a new orchestral work during the 2005-2006 season. The premiere was a great success. I’ve got pictures from the event in the Photos page and a recording of the performance and more details on the Composition page.

2/23/06: A foggy night for Fog: the Florida West Coast Symphony performed my first serious orchestral composition, Fog, in an abridged and reduced form on one of their “Enchanted Evenings” series concerts. The concert was actually delayed because of incredibly thick foggy conditions leading to some musicians being delayed in traffic. The performance went exceptionally well and was repeated on Saturday the 25^th and Sunday the 26^th. Read the review from the Herald Tribune.