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. Partially deaf from birth, Dillon grew up in a bustling household with seven older siblings. He 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 North Carolina School of the Arts, where he has served as Music Director of the Contemporary Ensemble, Assistant Dean of Performance and Dean of the School of Music.

Dillon's music, in the words of American Record Guide, is "lovely...austere...vivid and impressive." His works are recorded by Albany Records, Channel Crossings and CRS, and published by American Composers Editions. He is represented by Jeffrey James Arts Consulting.


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Sunday, February 18, 2007
Off to the links

On Wednesday I’m off to Michigan for a festival of my music. Eastern Michigan University is mounting quite an impressive show, with three days of events. Students, faculty and guest artists will be performing six pieces of mine: Façade (1983), Dunigan Variations (1991), Furies and Muses (1997), Amadeus ex machina (2001), Big Brothers (2004) and Blown Away (2005). You can read all about the festival here.


I’m looking forward to meeting Anthony Iannacone, who organized this event. Every other year, he has one of these festivals, which they call MUSIC NOW. Students have been studying my scores, writing papers about my work, even contacting me with questions in advance of my visit. Again, it’s all very impressive.

The challenge for me will be the 45-minute convocation speech I’m supposed to give about my music. I work very hard on a daily basis to keep my enormous ego in check; the prospect of talking about myself for 45 minutes is a bit frightening. I’m not sure how I’ll ever stuff that cat back into the bag when it’s all over.

But for now, I have lots of links. Drew Traxler, about whom I wrote in my last post, has more silly Wright Flight cartoons on his page here. And Beau Roberts, one of the other actors in last weekend’s performance, has an interesting post mortem here. And there's a nice review of the piece in the Mansfield News Journal.


And the amazing Piotr Szewczyk, whose Violin Futura project I’ve chronicled before, premiered my Mister Blister last Monday along with several other works on a New World Symphony Forum Concert. The following day, he had them all posted on YouTube here. Congrats and thanks, Piotr – I’ll be giving you some feedback when I get back from Michigan and have a chance to give a close listen.


Meanwhile, I’ve got to get back to work on this convocation speech.