about the composer

Scott Wheeler on composer Lee Hyla (b. 1952):

"His music finds common ground between the postwar American expressionism of Stefan Wolpe and Elliott Carter and the avant garde jazz style of musicians such as Cecil Taylor, also integrating aspects of rock music, especially punk ... A meticulous attention to pitch organization and dramatic structure allows raucousness to achieve elegance."

Hyla was born in Niagara Falls, New York, and raised in Greencastle, Indiana. He earned degrees in composition at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he now heads the composition department. Hyla has written for such ensembles as Kronos Quartet (with poet Allen Ginsberg), Lydian String Quartet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, Triple Helix, and many solo artists. He has received commissions from the Fromm, Guggenheim, Koussevitzky, and Naumburg Foundations, Chamber Music America, and Meet the Composer/ Reader's Digest, and honors including the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Rome Prize.

Hyla's recent projects include At Suma Beach (2003), based on the Japanese Noh play Matsukaze, commissioned by the Japan Society of New York for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Zurek (2004) for House Blend, the resident ensemble of The Kitchen in New York City; and Amore Scaduto (2004) for violin and cello, premiered by the Network for New Music and Phrenic New Ballet in Philadelphia. In 2004 he was resident composer at the American Academy in Rome, and in 2005 he was a composition fellow at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. Hyla's music has been recorded on the Avant, CRI, New World, Nonesuch, and Tzadik labels.