Michael Hersch
Composition
Recipient of many honors including First Prize in the American Composers Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, and both the Charles Ives Scholarship and Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Orchestral works conducted in the U.S. and abroad under conductors including Mariss Jansons, Robert Spano, Alan Gilbert, Marin Alsop, James DePriest, Carlos Kalmar, and Gerard Schwarz, with the orchestras of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Bournemouth, Dallas, Seattle, Oregon, Colorado, and the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, among others. Appointed by Mariss Jansons as Composer-in-Residence of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for 2002–2003. He has written for soloists including Garrick Ohlsson, Midori, Boris Pergamenschikow, Walter Boeykens, Daniel Gaisford, and Peter Sheppard-Skaerved. Chamber works performed at festivals including the Romaeuropa Festival, Schloss Neuhardenberg Festival, Cabrillo Music Festival, Festa Musica della Europea, among others. Other performances and commissions include those by the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and Carnegie Hall.
As a pianist Mr. Hersch has appeared on the Van Cliburn Foundation’s “Modern at the Modern” Series, the Musica XXI Romaeuropa Festival, the Festival of Contemporary Music “Nuova Consonanza,” Network for New Music Series, the American Academy in Berlin Series, St. Louis’ Sheldon Concert Hall, and in New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall, the 92nd St. Y – Tisch Center for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, among others.
Mr. Hersch was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Norfolk Festival for Contemporary Music, and the Pacific Music Festival. Primary studies at the Peabody Conservatory with additional studies at the Moscow Conservatory.
