Long Bio

Andrea Clearfield is an award winning American composer of music for orchestra, chorus, soloists, chamber ensembles, dance and multi-media collaborations. She has been praised by the New York Times for her “graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing”, the Philadelphia Inquirer for her “virtuosity”, “compositional wizardry” and “mastery with large choral and instrumental forces” and by the L.A. Times for her “fluid and glistening orchestration”. Her works are performed widely in the U.S. and abroad.

Performances include Kabo Omowale (2008) commissioned and premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra for narrator, chorus and orchestra and performed again by The Philadelphia Orchestra with Charlotte Blake Alston and the Philadelphia All City Choir in January, 2010. Other recent works include Dream Variations (2008), commissioned by The Debussy Trio and premiered with the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall; Our Better Angels (2009), choral cantata for the Turtle Creek Chorale at Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas and Rhapsodie (2008), for flute, harp and string trio for Dolce Suono Chamber Music Concert Series, premiered at First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. Her trio, “…and low to the lake falls home” (A Memoriam for Joseph and Margaret Wincenc) was commissioned by internationally renowned flutist Carol Wincenc and premiered at the Morgan Library on Feb. 22, 2010 by Les Amies Trio with New York Philharmonic Principal players, Cynthia Phelps (viola) and Nancy Allen (harp).

She has composed nine cantatas for chorus, soloists and orchestra and is currently composing her tenth cantata, Tse Go La, incorporating Tibetan melodies that she has recorded in Lo Monthang, Nepal. The work is co-commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir, with a premiere on April 29, 2012, Trinity Memorial Church, Philadelphia. Her cantata, The Golem Psalms, was commissioned and premiered by the Mendelssohn Club, Alan Harler, artistic director, with Sanford Sylvan, baritone, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia in 2006 with subsequent performances at the Kimmel Center, Indiana University and Haverford College. Her hour-long cantata on breast cancer, The Long Bright, commissioned by David Wolman, was premiered at the Kimmel Center, 2004 with Grammy award winning soprano Hila Plitmann, the Temple University Music Prep Children’s Chorus and Orchestra 2001 and was performed again by Ms. Plitmann at Royce Hall, Los Angeles on March 11, 2010. The works have raised substantial amounts of money for cancer research. Fire and Ice, choral cantata with soloists and orchestra to the poetry of Robert Frost, commissioned by The Handel Society of Dartmouth College in celebration of their 200 Year Anniversary, was premiered in 2007 at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, Robert Duff, conductor. Her cantata on biblical women, Women of Valor, was premiered at Royce Hall with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony in 2000 and a story on the work was broadcast nationally on NPR’s “All Things Considered”.

In Summer of 2008 and 2010, she traveled to the restricted northern Himalayan region of Lo Monthang, Nepal to research and record the area’s Tibetan music. She was commissioned by Network for New Music to create two new chamber works, Lung-Ta (The Windhorse, 2009) and Kawa Ma Gyur (The Unchanging Pillar, 2010) inspired by the indigenous music of this remote area. She is currently composing a new work for the Mendelssohn Club and Pennsylvania Girlchoir based on several of these Tibetan melodies. Other current commissions include Hagar for the Women’s Sacred Music Project to poetry by Dr. Ellen Frankel for premiere in September, 2011; a new work for saxophone and winds for Susquehanna University; a song cycle for Lyric Fest; a choral work for the College of New Jersey; a string quartet for the Newbury Music Festival and an electronic work for Group Motion Dance Company based on Indian music.

Older works include her Violin Concerto, Romanza, which was commissioned and premiered by Orchestra 2001 with soloist Gloria Justen in 2007 and recorded with the Russian Philharmonic in Moscow. The Rim of Love, commissioned by Astral Artists, was premiered at the Kimmel Center in 2006 with Disella Larusdottir and Symphony in C under the direction of Rossen Milanov. The River of God (2003) commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for chorus and organ, was premiered at the inaugural ceremony for the new organ at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, PA and the west coast premiere took place at Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Master Chorale in 2006.

Dr. Clearfield was awarded an American Academy in Rome Fellowship from the American Composers Forum, 2010. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, where she was the recipient of the Aaron Copland Residency for an American Composer, The MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, Ucross Foundation, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, where she was awarded the Hannah S. and Samuel A. Cohn Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale, The Banff Centre, I-Park, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Millay Colony, the Wurltizer Foundation and the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. She has received numerous grants and awards from organizations including the NEA, ASCAP, Leeway Foundation, American Music Center, American Composers Forum, Independence Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer and the International Alliance for Women in Music. Her works are published by Oxford University Press, Jomar Press and International Opus and have been recorded by MSR Classics, Crystal Records, 2L Norwegian and Albany Labels and Centaur Records/ Her cantata, The Golem Psalms, will be released on Innova Label in 2012.

She has served on the composition faculty at The University of the Arts since 1986. A native of Philadelphia, she received a D.M.A. in composition from Temple University where she was a student of Maurice Wright, a two-time winner of the John Heller Memorial Award for Excellence in Composition and the first composer to receive the prestigious Presidential Fellowship. She was honored by Temple University in 2004 as a distinguished alumna. She received an M.M. in Piano from The University of the Arts as a student of Susan Starr, and a BA in Music from Muhlenberg College where she studied with her mentor Margaret Garwood and graduated with Summa Cum Lauda and Phi Beta Kappa honors as well as first prizes in performance and musicianship. Other teachers include Jonathan Kramer (orchestration) and George Tsontakis (composition). Ms. Clearfield has been the pianist in the Relâche Ensemble since 1990. Active as a pianist, she has performed and recorded with numerous groups, including the Court of the Dalai Lama. A strong believer in creating community through music, she is also the founder, producer and host of the Philadelphia Salon a renowned concert series featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic, multimedia and world music, now celebrating its 25th Year and Winner of the Best of Philadelphia Award, 2008.