Christopher Berg
Christopher Berg, although self-taught as a composer, counts as mentors composers Robert Helps, Noel Farrand and Richard Hundley. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music where Helps was his piano teacher. Berg is known primarily as a song composer. Reviewing his twelve "Songs on Poems of Frank O'Hara," the American Record Guide said, "On the evidence of these songs, Berg may be an American Hugo Wolf."
Steven Blier, Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song, has written, "Just as Poulenc illuminated the poetry of Apollinaire and Eluard... Chris Berg clarifies O'Hara... He musicalizes O'Hara's words with an expert sense of timing, a perfect balance of recitative and tunefulness and a dry sense of humor... Berg is able to carry on the traditions of Paul Bowles's perfect miniatures. In this subtle blend of music, words, and silence, he locates the poem's furtive sensuality..." The O'Hara songs date from 1985–88, and a number of them have been recorded by Paul Sperry (Albany CD). There are also recordings of "Poem" ("Lana Turner has collapsed!"), by Chris Pedro Trakas and Carl Halvorsen, and this song is also included in an anthology of "American Encores," edited by Paul Sperry and published by Oxford University Press.
Among Berg's earlier songs are settings of Gertrude Stein, Stevie Smith (a cycle with orchestra, commissioned for and premiered by Janice Felty, called "Not Waving but Drowning"), Vladimir Nabokov (a cycle for high soprano, composed at the request of soprano Iris Hiskey), Tim Dlugos, and Nellie Hill. A number of these songs can be heard on an Opus One LP, sung by mezzo Janice Felty. Berg has also composed a Mass for soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra, two string quartets (one with voice in all four movements), a piece for English horn and actress (recorded by Thomas Stacy and Elaine Stritch on a Cala CD), "Five Russian Lyrics," for baritone and piano trio, on poems of Perry Brass, and anumber of works commissioned by the vocal chamber group, the Mirror Visions Ensemble. These include settings of texts by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Erik Satie (a cantata on a section of his autobiography called "Intelligence and Musicality Among the Animals"), Robert Desnos, Stephane Mallarmé, and a 25-minute "Portrait en Miniature de Madame de Sévigné," first performed at the Musée Carnavalet, theMuseum of the History of Paris, in March 2002 and re-engaged for eight more performances there in 2003. Many of these works are available on an Albany CD under the general title "Un Américain à Paris."
The New York Festival of Song featured his O'Hara settings on its opening concert of the 2003–04 season, "The New York Poets." Pianist Bennett Lerner features his music in a 2003 world tour which took one major piano piece ("Ossessione: Hommagio a F[erruccio] B[usoni]") and four shorter ones to New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Miami, Bangkok, Paris, and Tokyo. Lerner's subsequent recording of this repertoire was released on an Albany 2-CD set, "Music By My Friends."
Berg has been the recipient of grants from Meet the Composer, American Music Center, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, and has been a Yaddo fellow. His works are published by Tender Tender Music, distributed exclusively by Classical Vocal Repertoire. Berg's opera, "Cymbeline," based closely on Shakespeare's play was showcased in 2009 at the Opera Grows in Brooklyn series at Galapagos Art Space. He has most recently composed an orchestral rhapsody, "We Have Heard the Chimes at Midnight", commissioned and performed by the Santa Fe (NM) Community Orchestra, another orchestral work, "Love Letter (for Bastiaan)", two books of Nocturnes and Preludes for piano, "Two Poets, As Seen by Another," for baritone, bassoon and piano, on texts by Ilse Gilbert, commissioned by Downtown Music Productions in 2007, and "Four Episodes and an Epilogue, for cello and piano, commissioned for the Russian cellist Svetlana Kossyreva-Lishcke.
A musical, Back Home: The War Brides Musical, which he created in collaboration with Frank Evans (lyrics) and Ron Sproat (book) has been produced in New Hope, PA, at the Spirit of Broadway Theater in Connecticut, and at the New York Music Theater Festival 2007.
Steven Blier, Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song, has written, "Just as Poulenc illuminated the poetry of Apollinaire and Eluard... Chris Berg clarifies O'Hara... He musicalizes O'Hara's words with an expert sense of timing, a perfect balance of recitative and tunefulness and a dry sense of humor... Berg is able to carry on the traditions of Paul Bowles's perfect miniatures. In this subtle blend of music, words, and silence, he locates the poem's furtive sensuality..." The O'Hara songs date from 1985–88, and a number of them have been recorded by Paul Sperry (Albany CD). There are also recordings of "Poem" ("Lana Turner has collapsed!"), by Chris Pedro Trakas and Carl Halvorsen, and this song is also included in an anthology of "American Encores," edited by Paul Sperry and published by Oxford University Press.
Among Berg's earlier songs are settings of Gertrude Stein, Stevie Smith (a cycle with orchestra, commissioned for and premiered by Janice Felty, called "Not Waving but Drowning"), Vladimir Nabokov (a cycle for high soprano, composed at the request of soprano Iris Hiskey), Tim Dlugos, and Nellie Hill. A number of these songs can be heard on an Opus One LP, sung by mezzo Janice Felty. Berg has also composed a Mass for soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra, two string quartets (one with voice in all four movements), a piece for English horn and actress (recorded by Thomas Stacy and Elaine Stritch on a Cala CD), "Five Russian Lyrics," for baritone and piano trio, on poems of Perry Brass, and anumber of works commissioned by the vocal chamber group, the Mirror Visions Ensemble. These include settings of texts by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Erik Satie (a cantata on a section of his autobiography called "Intelligence and Musicality Among the Animals"), Robert Desnos, Stephane Mallarmé, and a 25-minute "Portrait en Miniature de Madame de Sévigné," first performed at the Musée Carnavalet, theMuseum of the History of Paris, in March 2002 and re-engaged for eight more performances there in 2003. Many of these works are available on an Albany CD under the general title "Un Américain à Paris."
The New York Festival of Song featured his O'Hara settings on its opening concert of the 2003–04 season, "The New York Poets." Pianist Bennett Lerner features his music in a 2003 world tour which took one major piano piece ("Ossessione: Hommagio a F[erruccio] B[usoni]") and four shorter ones to New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Miami, Bangkok, Paris, and Tokyo. Lerner's subsequent recording of this repertoire was released on an Albany 2-CD set, "Music By My Friends."
Berg has been the recipient of grants from Meet the Composer, American Music Center, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, and has been a Yaddo fellow. His works are published by Tender Tender Music, distributed exclusively by Classical Vocal Repertoire. Berg's opera, "Cymbeline," based closely on Shakespeare's play was showcased in 2009 at the Opera Grows in Brooklyn series at Galapagos Art Space. He has most recently composed an orchestral rhapsody, "We Have Heard the Chimes at Midnight", commissioned and performed by the Santa Fe (NM) Community Orchestra, another orchestral work, "Love Letter (for Bastiaan)", two books of Nocturnes and Preludes for piano, "Two Poets, As Seen by Another," for baritone, bassoon and piano, on texts by Ilse Gilbert, commissioned by Downtown Music Productions in 2007, and "Four Episodes and an Epilogue, for cello and piano, commissioned for the Russian cellist Svetlana Kossyreva-Lishcke.
A musical, Back Home: The War Brides Musical, which he created in collaboration with Frank Evans (lyrics) and Ron Sproat (book) has been produced in New Hope, PA, at the Spirit of Broadway Theater in Connecticut, and at the New York Music Theater Festival 2007.