Official site of composer Andrea Clearfield. Biography, list of works with audio, score samples, reviews and program notes, photographs, upcoming performances.

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Creating deep, emotive musical languages that build cultural and artistic bridges, the music of ANDREA CLEARFIELD is performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. Her 160 works include an opera and fifteen large-scale cantatas; one commissioned and premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra. She is a recipient of numerous awards including a 2016 Pew Fellowship, a 2021 Pew Center for Arts and Heritage International Residency Award, two Independence Foundation Fellowships, American Academy in Rome William Penn Fellowship, Residency Fellowships at Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Ucross, Civitella, Montalvo, Blue Mountain Center, Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico and Temple University’s Presidential Fellowship. She was awarded 2021 Fellowships at MacDowell, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Ragdale, 2022 Fellowships at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland and a 2023 Fellowship at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Gotland, Sweden. Andrea is currently composing a work for chorus and orchestra for the University of New Mexico, a solo guitar work for William Kanengiser and a multimedia oratorio commissioned by the Mendelssohn Chorus for May 15, 2022 premiere at the Fillmore, Philadelphia. BEYOND THE BINARY (a meditation on humans and machines) is a cantata to libretto by Ellen Frankel with custom built instruments by David Kontak. A quasi-sequel to Karel Čapek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots, the work celebrates the play’s 100 year anniversary and explores what it means to incorporate robotics with organic life and if robots do not have gender, do they represent an opportunity to move BEYOND THE BINARY? Andrea’s first opera, MILA, Great Sorcerer to libretto by Jean-Claude van Itallie and Lois Walden was presented at the 2019 Prototype Festival in New York City to critical acclaim. Watch here. This spring, Andrea was re-elected to serve on the Board of the Grammy’s, Philadelphia Chapter. She also serves on the Executive Board of the Young Women Composers Camp, and the Advisory Board of the Women’s Sacred Music Project.

The SALON will celebrate its (WOW!) 35-Year Anniversary on September 26th, 2021! The program features superb performers from around the country in a hybrid SZALON, 7:30pm ET. To join online, visit the website here which provides the Zoom link, artist page and program. Andrea started a ZALON to continue the tradition online, support artists and help keep the arts alive. The 35 Year Season begins a new hybrid model- the SZALON – to connect the communities far and wide with “live” and remote performances streamed in and out with the help of a fabulous tech team, Adam Vidiksis, director. Learn more here. Logo by Mia Bosna.

A strong advocate for creating vital, alternative arts spaces that build community, Andrea founded her renowned Salon in 1986. “One of the best-known music salons in the country” with a “deep bench of topflight musicians”, “an underground sensation” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), “one of Philadelphia’s hidden gems” (Temple News) and winner of the “Best of Philly Award 2008” (Philadelphia Magazine), the Salon has become a beloved event, sparking a large and growing community around the arts in Philadelphia and beyond. She started Salons in Aspen, Scottsdale, NY and Main Line Reform Temple, National Museum of American Jewish History and the Interfaith Center of Philadelphia among others.

Other awards: Andrea was named the 2020 The David Del Tredici Residency Fellow at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY and was awarded a 2020 Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship in Taos, NM. She is 2020-2022 Composer-in-Residence with National Concerts at Carnegie Hall. “Home in Me (Body)” for treble chorus, percussion and piano was premiered at Carnegie Hall on February 16, 2020. “Prayer to the Shechinah” was premiered by the Grammy-award winning Conspirare chorus, who commissioned the work, in Austin on February 21, 2020. “Here I am: I am Here”, a cantata commissioned by the Coro Allegro chorus will reschedule the May premiere at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University and at the GALA Festival. Andrea currently has a full commission schedule including new works for the University of New Mexico, Michigan State University Chorale, guitarist William Kanengiser, Fourth Coast Ensemble, University of New Mexico Chorus and Orchestra, Sigma Alpha Iota National Conference, soprano Laura Strickling, Mendelssohn Club Chorus, Taos Community Choir and more. For a list of Andrea’s performances, click here.

Clearfield was awarded residencies to complete a number of commissions at the Copland House, MacDowell, Women’s International Study Center in Santa Fe, Visby International Centre for Composers (Gotland, Sweden), the Bergman Estate on Faro (Sweden), Brush Creek Foundation in Saratoga, Wyoming, Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Ill. and was selected as a 2019 Copland House Residency Award winner. She was awarded a 2020 fellowship at Yaddo, a second fellowship at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Spring, 2021 and a Fellowship at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island in Winter, 2022.

Recent works are inspired by Tibetan music fieldwork that she conducted in a northern Himalayan region of Nepal to help preserve this musical heritage. Her first opera, MILA, Great Sorcerer, with libretto by Jean Claude van Itallie and Lois Walden, was premiered in a semi-staged production at the acclaimed Prototype Festival in January, 2019 at Gerald Lynch Theater in NYC. Praised by the press as “mystical and dramatically compelling”, “deeply moving and successful premiere”, “highly recommended”, “colorful, expressive score”, “lush and rich”, “a sonic exultation with lasting power”, “successfully delivers its redemptive message”, “the most accomplished and mature of this year’s compositions”, the opera was commissioned by Gene Kaufman and Terry Eder. Read the feature stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tricycle Magazine. The opera is on the life of the great Tibetan sage, Milarepa, who transformed from mass murderer into Tibet’s most venerated teacher. Watch the trailer.

Lung-Ta (The Windhorse) was presented to His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama as an initiative for world peace and Tse Go La cantata has been performed internationally.

Active as a pianist, she was keyboardist with the Relâche Ensemble for 25 years and was honored to have been invited to perform with the Court of the Dalai Lama.

She was appointed the Steven R. Gerber Composer in Residence with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Dirk Brossé, Music Director for the 2018-19 season and was invited as 2018 Composer-in-Residence at the Music from Angelfire Festival in NM and was interviewed by Fred Child for Performance Today. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Recording Academy/Grammy’s, Philadelphia Chapter.

She is a recipient of a 2016 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a 2017 Independence Foundation Fellowship. She was 2018 Visiting Composer at Emory University and Yale-NUS in Singapore. Andrea has been invited as visiting composer to numerous universities including University of Texas at Austin, Michigan State University, William and Mary, The College of New Jersey, Dartmouth College, Indiana University, University of Chicago, Curtis Institute of Music and served as McKilroy Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas.

Commissions for 2019-2020 include: 2020-2023 Composer-in-residence with National Concerts for a 3-part work to poetry by Sienna Craig for premieres at Carnegie Hall with a consortium of treble choirs on the theme of “what is home”;a new work for chorus and orchestra commissioned by the University of New Mexico for premiere in December, 2021 to poetry by Kitty O’Meara; a cantata on conversion therapy and transgender children for the award-winning Coro Allegro choir to premiere at Harvard University; a cantata on healing for Michigan State University to poetry by Anthony Silvestri; a large-scale vocal work on painting and singing peace for the Fourth Coast Ensemble in collaboration with master Zen artist and activist Kaz Tanahashi for Chicago premiere; a solo guitar piece inspired by the Tibetan dramyin guitar for Grammy-award winning classical guitarist William Kanengiser; a treble choir work to poetry by Rumi for Sigma Alpha Iota and a choral cantata for the Taos Community Chorus from her song cycle Transformed by Fire to poetry by Ariana Kramer on famed ecologist Aldo Leopold and his changing perception of wolves. Prayer to the Shechinah was commissioned and premiered in February, 2020 by Conspirare to poetry by Mirabai Starr.

2018-19 Commissions included an electric guitar concerto, GLOW, for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Dirk Brossé, Music Director, Jordan Dodson, soloist;Widening Circles from Network for New Music in honor of Linda Reichert; the featured flute choir piece, Tides of Breath for the 2018 International Low Flutes Festival; Earth Door/Sky Door 2018 Music from Angelfire; The Song of Hannah for the Women’s Sacred Music Project and Ha-Galgal for former principal horn, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Julie Landsman. Her choral music is included in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Choral Arts Hal Leonard Voices of Distinction Catalogues and the Boosey & Hawkes Conductor’s Choice Catalogues.

Women of Valor, an oratorio on the stories of Biblical women on Albany Records. Hila Plitmann, soprano, Rinat Shaham, mezzo, Tova Feldshuh, narrator and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, Noreen Green, artistic director. Fred Vogler, producer. Purchase here.

Convergence was released on Bridge Records to critical acclaim. Read reviews. Listen. Purchase.

Andrea’s 2011 Salon Video

Andrea was awarded 2016 Fellowships from the Wurlitzer Foundation and Marble House Project and 2015 Fellowships at Blue Mountain Center, Brush Creek Foundation, Hambidge Center, Ragdale and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. 2014 residencies include The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ucross and Copland House.

Andrea’s 2016 premieres include That Summer: A Fantasia on Family for the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Choir (read a recent article about the work here). Published by Boosey & Hawkes. Tse Go La Chamber Suite was commissioned by the Taos Chamber Music Group, Rabsong Shar for soprano and chamber orchestra for the University of Arkansas and Sagitta with Mimi Stillman and Gideon Whitehead at the Curtis Institute of Music. Alleluia for Mendelssohn Club premiered last spring and was published in Boosey & Hawkes’ Conductor’s Choice Series. Also published by Boosey & Hawkes are When I am Woman, performed at the Girlchoir National Convention and The Kiss, recorded by Sandra Snow with her women’s choir, mirabai.

Andrea received grants from The Rubin Foundation, American Composers Forum and The University of the Arts to trek to the remote Himalayan region of Lo Monthang, Nepal in 2008 and 2010 to record the music of royal court singer, Tashi Tsering. She and anthropologist/ethnomusicologist Katey Blumenthal recorded over 130 songs not previously documented. Their recordings and translations by Katey Blumenthal with Karma Wangyal Gurung are part of the University of Cambridge World Oral Literature Project. Andrea’s cantata, Tse Go La was co-commissioned by The Mendelssohn Club and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir and premiered with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Listen here. Purchase the score here. Read an article about the fieldwork. Other works inspired by the fieldwork, Kawa Ma Gyur and Lung-Ta were commissioned by Network for New Music. Watch a video. Hear excerpts from Lung-Ta. Read Andrea’s article “Journey to the Top of the World” in the International Alliance for Women in Music Journal. Read David Stearns’ feature story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. More info here.