Guest Composer Timothy McCormack

Timothy McCormack (1984) writes haptic, viscous music which makes audible the tactile, physical relationship between a performer and their instrument. Sometimes ecstatic, sometimes hermetic, his music embeds pitch within dense walls of noise to create strangely affecting sonic ecologies which alter one’s perception of time.

He has been commissioned by ensembles and organizations such as the ELISION Ensemble, Ensemblekollektiv Berlin, Klangforum Wien, the JACK Quartet, musikFabrik, Curious Chamber Players, the [Switch~ Ensemble], the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, the impuls Festival, and ON – Neue Musik Köln. His music has also been performed by Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Dal Niente, the TaleaEnsemble, Ensemble Nikel, and ensemble mosaik, and programmed on the MATA, Wien Modern, Darmstadt, Huddersfield, Maerzmusik, and TRANSIT festivals. He has forthcoming releases of his work on the Kairos and Huddersfield Contemporary Records labels.

                photo: Manu Theobald                   

McCormack is the recipient of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composers’ Prize (2018). He won the Impuls International Composition Competition (2019) which resulted in a new work for Vienna’s Klangforum Wien. He was also awarded the George Arthur Knight Prize (2014) for his piece you actually are evaporating, as well as the John Green Fellowship (2017) for his “demonstrated talent and promise as a composer,” both from Harvard University.

On Friday, February 14^th, Dr. McCormack will host a masterclass with several of the University at Buffalo PhD composition students and will present a lecture on his current composition interests and projects.