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

News. Press photos on Bio page

For music inquiries contact Trudy Chan.

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. She is a recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Pew Fellowship, two Independence Foundation Fellowships, American Academy in Rome William Penn Fellowship and Temple University’s Presidential Fellowship. Andrea has been commissioned by The Mendelssohn Club Chorus to write a major new work for 2021-22 premiere, funded by the NEA. BEYOND THE BINARY, a cantata to libretto by Ellen Frankel with custom built instruments by David Kontak explores what the proliferation of AI means for human labor and human workers; what it means to incorporate robotics with organic life and finally, if robots do not have gender, do they represent an opportunity to move BEYOND THE BINARY?

Andrea is currently a 2020 Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellow 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 Michigan State University Chorale, guitarist William Kanengiser, Fourth Coast Ensemble, Taos Community Choir, SAI National Conference, pianist Ching-Yun Hu, soprano Laura Strikling, Mendelssohn Club Chorus and more. For a list of Andrea’s performances, click here.

Prayer to the Shechinah, commissioned and premiered by Conspirare, poetry by Mirabi Starr.

The SALON is celebrating 34 YEARS!. We did it – together! Investors and supporters around the country made a lifetime dream come true. Now Andrea has started a ZALON to continue the tradition online, support artists, help keep the arts alive and connect the community far and wide.These exciting programs feature artists performing from their homes around the U.S.and abroad in diverse styles of music and collaborative arts. Logo by Mia Bosna.

Illustration by Eve Myles. Logo design 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.

Clearfield was awarded residencies to complete a number of commissions at the Copland House, 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, to 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: Composer-in-residence with National Concerts for a 3-part work to poetry by Sienna Craig for premiere at Carnegie Hall with a consortium of treble choirs on the theme of “what is home”; 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.

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.

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

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.