|
|
JEFFREY WOOD
Professor of Music
Composition, Theory, and Piano
 Dr.
Wood’s compositions have been performed throughout the country
and have received many awards including three awards from
Broadcast Music Incorporated, an award from the American Society
of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and the David S.
Bates Memorial Prize. He was the highest prizewinner in the
1984 Stroud Festival International Composition Competition in
Great Britain, the only American so cited, for his brass quintet
In Memoriam Magistri. The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
subsequently performed this work during the 1984 Festival. For
his Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, commissioned by the Music
Teacher’s National Association, Wood was named Distinguished
Composer of the Year in 1985. Wood has received commissions
from the Governor’s School for the Arts in Tennessee, National
Musical Arts, Washington, D.C., the Quintet of the Americas, and
the Center for the Creative Arts at Austin Peay State
University. A CD recording of his woodwind quintet Comedies, as
performed by the Quintet of the Americas, was released in 1991.
More recent recordings have included Kriegeslieder [Songs of
War] (performed by Lisa Conklin-Bishop and Jeffrey Wood, piano),
The Habit of Grief for solo guitar (performed by Stanley Yates),
Fantasy on Christmas Carols and In Memoriam Magistri:
Passacaglia for brass quintet and Lullay, My Child (performed by
Sharon Mabry, mezzo soprano and Lynn Rice-See, piano).
Wood has
written a substantial amount of vocal music, including four
large song cycles, MCMXIV for tenor and piano, Kriegeslieder,
for mezzo soprano and piano, Till Time and Times are Done for
soprano, tenor and piano and most recently Ne reprenez si j’ay
aymé [Do not reproach me if I’ve loved], settings of the poetry
of Louïze Labé and Christine de Pisan for voice and piano. His
Every Night and Every Morn, a setting of a text by William
Blake, was a finalist in the NATS Vocal Composition Award and
the subject of a DMA Document by Dr. Gregory Rike, “Every Night
and Every Morn: A Performance Study of the Song Cycle by Jeffrey
Wood from the Poetry of William Blake,” which will be published
in an upcoming NATS Journal. Wood’s music is available from
Classical Vocal Reprints (http://www.classicalvocalrep.com).
Wood’s
chamber opera, entitled Diaries: a Parable for Voices, was based
on the stories of women who served as nurses during World War I
and poetry of E. E. Cummings, David Jones, Archibald MacLeish,
Israel Zangwill, Marianne Moore and Carl Sandburg. This work
was given a fully staged première in 1996. An oratorio for
chorus, vocal soloists and string orchestra Lamentationes
leremiæ Prophetæ [Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah], based
on the biblical text and the poetry of Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs
and Dan Pagis, was given its first performance in 1999 by the
Austin Peay State University Chamber Singers and the Nashville
Chamber Orchestra, conducted by George Mabry. This work was
subsequently nominated for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize.
During
1987-1988 Wood held the Individual Artist Fellowship in
Composition from the Tennessee Arts Commission, with a matching
grant from the Joan Harrell Schaeffer Foundation. Recent grants
have included a research fellowship from the Tower Foundation of
Austin Peay State University for 1990-1991. In 1988 Wood was
awarded the Richard M. Hawkins Award for scholarship and
creativity by Austin Pay State University.
Wood was
named a winner of the 1995 Young American’s Art Song Competition
sponsored by G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers, which
resulted in the inclusion of one of the songs from the cycle
MCMXIV in a “The Art Song Collection” published in June, 1996.
Also in 1996 a work for solo guitar, The Habit of Grief was a
prizewinner in the Guitar Foundation of America Set-Piece
Competition.
As a
pianist Wood has appeared in solo and chamber music recitals
throughout the United States. In 1983 he was one of fourteen
finalists chosen to compete in the United States Information
Agency’s Artistic Ambassador Program at the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C. He has also been a featured
composer/performer at the International Composer’s Symposia at
the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Wood is deeply
committed to the performance of contemporary music, and has been
involved in the world premières of Elizabeth Vercoe’s monodrama
based on the life of John Brown, A Dangerous Man, and Alan
Hovhaness’ Concerto No. 10 for Piano, Strings and Trumpet, op.
413 as well as selections from Frederic Goossen’s A
Well-Tempered Clavier: Preludes and Fugues for Piano (2004). He
has worked with such notable composers as Roger Sessions, Ernst
K renek, Thea Musgrave, and Mario Davidovsky in performances of
their keyboard and chamber music. A recording of Francis
Poulenc’s Aubade: Concerto choréographique pour piano et
dix-huit instruments (1929) is scheduled to be released in
2007.
Dr. Wood
also coordinates an annual Young Composer’s Competition through
the Center for the Creative Arts at Austin Peay that has awarded
substantial monetary prizes and provided performances to young
composers since 1987.
Email:
WoodJ@apsu.edu
Phone:
(931) 221-7819
Music/Mass Communication Building, Room 313 |
