Lawrence Dillon@Sequenza21.com

"There are no two points so distant from one another that they cannot be connected by a single straight line -- and an infinite number of curves."

Composer Lawrence Dillon has produced an extensive body of work, from brief solo pieces to a full-length opera. Three disks of his music are due out in 2010 on the Bridge, Albany and Naxos labels. In the past year, he has had commissions from the Emerson String Quartet, the Cassatt String Quartet, the Mansfield Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, the Salt Lake City Symphony, the Ravinia Festival, the Daedalus String Quartet, the Kenan Institute for the Arts, the University of Utah and the Idyllwild Symphony Orchestra.

Although he lost 50% of his hearing in a childhood illness, Dillon began composing as soon as he started piano lessons at the age of seven. In 1985, he became the youngest composer to earn a doctorate at The Juilliard School, and was shortly thereafter appointed to the Juilliard faculty. Dillon is now Composer in Residence at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he has served as Music Director of the Contemporary Ensemble, Assistant Dean of Performance, and Interim Dean of the School of Music. He was the Featured American Composer in the February 2006 issue of Chamber Music magazine.


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Wednesday, January 17, 2007
ICE in the forecast


The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) has had pretty phenomenal success in just a few years of existence. I first heard of the group about four years ago, when a respected colleague told me that they were something to keep an eye on. Since then, I’ve had trouble keeping an eye off of them, since they seem to be popping up all over the place.

Part of the secret to this ubiquity is their structure: a thirty-member core spread over two cities – New York and Chicago. Adjunct musicians are hired for special projects. As a result, they can perform completely different programs in several different locations all on the same night.

ICE will be in residence here at the North Carolina School of the Arts this weekend, giving masterclasses, seminars, a recording session of student works and a concert of music by Steve Reich, Philippe Manoury, Elliott Carter, Franco Donatoni, Earle Brown and Huang Ruo

I’ll have a report next week. I’m very hopeful for an excellent residency.

And, after all, with the weather finally turning cold, I’m happy to encourage ICE wherever I see it.