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

News

Andrea is an award winning composer of music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensemble, dance and multi media collaborations. She creates deep, emotive musical languages that build cultural and artistic bridges. She is a recipient of a 2016 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a 2017 Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts. She will be 2018 Visiting Composer at Emory University in Atlanta and 2018 Composer-In-Residence at the Music from Angelfire Festival in NM. She has been awarded a Fall 2017 Residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming and will be Spring 2018 visiting lecturer at Yale-NUS in Singapore. Andrea and writer Ariana Kramer were awardees of the 2017 Aldo Leopold Residency where they collaborated on a chamber work on Leopold’s changing perception on wolves, Transformed by Fire that was premiered to a full house at the Harwood Museum in August with an encore performance by request. She is a winner of the 2016 Global Premiere Commissioning Competition for which she is writing a work for marimba and strings. Clearfield was included in the 2017 Hal Leonard Voices of Distinction Catalogue. She is currently completing her first opera, MILA, to libretto by Jean Claude van Itallie and Lois Walden, commissioned by Gene Kaufman and Terry Eder for 2019 premiere directed by Kevin Newbury. Current commissions also include Khandroma (mkha’ ‘gro) མཁའ་འགྲོ་ to poetry by Sienna Craig, commissioned by The Esoterics, Eric Banks, artistic director and a piano solo for Network for New Music honoring Linda Reichert. Andrea was recently visiting composer at University of Texas at Austin, Michigan State University, Curtis Institute of Music and Mcllory Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas. For music inquiries contact Trudy Chan at Black Tea Music.

New release: River Melos, Ava Ordman, trombone. Purchase here.

New release: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.

In 2016 Andrea was Visiting Composer at Michigan State University and McIllroy Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas.

Visiting Composer, Michigan State University

The SALON celebrates (WOW) 30 years!. We did it – together! Investors and supporters around the country made a lifetime dream come true. https://vimeo.com/106725750

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 Philadelphia cultural institution, 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.

Andrea was awarded 2017 Fellowships from the Ucross Foundation, 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 where she lived and worked in Aaron Copland’s home.

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). The work will be published by Boosey & Hawkes in 2017. Tse Go La Chamber Suite and Avalokitshvara (arr. flute, percussion, piano and string quartet) were commissioned by the Taos Chamber Music Group, Rabsong Shar for soprano and chamber orchestra for the University of Arkansas New Music Ensemble and Sagitta with Mimi Stillman and Gideon Whitehead at the Curtis Institute of Music. Alleluia for Mendelssohn Club premiered last spring and will be published in Boosey & Hawkes’ Conductor’s Choice Series. Choral works published by Boosey & Hawkes include When I am Woman, performed at the Girlchoir National Convention in Philadelphia and will be recorded by Sandra Snow.

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 Katey Blumenthal recorded over 130 songs not previously documented. Their recordings are part of the University of Cambridge World Oral Literature Project. Andrea’s Tibetan cantata, Tse Go La, incorporates some of these Tibetan melodies. The 2012 work was co-commissioned by The Mendelssohn Club and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir and premiered with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Listen there. Purchase the score here. Read an article about the fieldwork. Other works inspired by the treks, 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.

Andrea’s cantata The Golem Psalms was released on Innova Label with works by Higdon and Primosch. Opera News writes, “Her work is vivid and galvanizing… achieving a timeless beauty. Clearfield is a natural musical dramatist.” The CD was selected as Music Album of the Week by WQXR in NYC. More info.

Andrea’s trio “…and low to the lake falls home” , commissioned by acclaimed flutist Carol Wincenc premiered at the Morgan Library, NYC by Les Amies with NY Philharmonic principal players Cynthia Phelps and Nancy Allen. Read NY Times Review.