Mark Gustavson

Biography

Mark Gustavson (born September 19, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American composer of contemporary classical music.

Biography

Gustavson lives on eastern Long Island and teaches at various universities in the New York City area, including Adelphi University and Nassau Community College. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1981 and received the D.M.A. from Columbia University in 1990. Gustavson also studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory with Ton De Leeuw on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1985–86 and was a composition fellow at Tanglewood in 1979. His primary composition teachers were Chinary Ung, Ben Johnston and Fred Lerdahl.

Music

Western classical music, folk music from around the world, and jazz blended with Eastern and Western philosophy have all influenced Gustavson's style. He mostly favors notated music that often sounds improvised. Form is often based on different approaches to variations influenced by naturally occurring cycles. Rhythm can be complex or deceptively simple; for example, the third movement of Quintet for clarinet, two violins, viola, and cello is a four-voice canon of continuous eighth notes that creates a background for the solo clarinet.

An improvisatory quality is suggested by the unpredictable entrances of each voice. In A Fool's Journey, it is the complex textures that create the illusion of improvisation. The complex layering of lines or polyphony in this example from "A Fool's Journey" purposely avoids the coming together of the independent voices. The Prelude to "Lament" for piano solo demonstrates another way to create the sense of improvisation by using a basso ostinato in the left hand and a rhythmically free right hand. One more example from a recent work "Turning" for bass clarinet, percussion, piano, and double bass explores many ways of creating the illusion of improvisation. This example demonstrates metrical independence of the four instruments, and at times, simultaneously in four different meters.
His music has been recognized with various grants, awards, and prizes, including grants from the, Alice M. Ditson Fund, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award (1987), the Joseph H. Bearns Prize, the BMI Student Composer Award (1979, 1982, 1983), and the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award.
Recently his collaborative audio-visual work with media artist Chris Myhr In-Between was a “Semi-Finalist” in the Blowup Film Fest, an international film festival in Chicago; shown at the Psychedelic Music and Film Festival 2022 in New York City; and presented at the Convergence Leicester 2022 in Leicester, UK, "Immersions and Resonances" at in South River, ON, Canada; and the.
In the first decade of the 21st century, Gustavson's attention turned to texts and vocal music. Two works of note are The Fisherman Songs for bass/baritone and piano and Lament, a monodrama for bass/baritone, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, female chorus, and contrabass, using a poem "Lament" by Dylan Thomas and the Welsh hymn “Llef”.
Prelude from Lament for bass clarinet, percussion, piano, and double bass is performed by the pianist Jacob Rhodebeck and Turning was performed by the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players. A recording with Quintet performed by Contempo and Dissolving Images for solo piano performed by Lisa Moore are available on Albany Records, and "Dissolving Images" and "Quintet" are published by Edition Peters.

Select list of compositions

Orchestra

Dust Dance (2010)
Hymn to the Vanished (2001) for string orchestra
Silent Moon (1998)
Waves (1988)
Band and wind ensemble

Hymn to the Vanished (2017) arranged for concert band
The Emperor's Music (2000) for twelve antiphonal solo brass
Chamber

Wheel (2014) for violin and piano
Hymn to the Vanished (2013) for clarinet and piano
Turning (2012) for bass clarinet, percussion, piano and double bass
Chiftetelli (2010) for clarinet, 2 violins, viola and cello
A Fool's Journey (1999) for flute (pic, alto), clarinet (bcl), percussion, violin and cello
Two of Cups (1999) for clarinet and viola
Albion (1997) for wind quintet
Quintet (1993) for clarinet, 2 violins, viola and cello
Bag o'Tales (1992) for saxophone quartet
Plexus (1991) for flute(pic), harp, viola and cello
Jag (1990) for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin and cello
Twenty Variations (1982) for flute and piano
Vocal

Lament (2021) text: Dylan Thomas and Welsh hymn “Llef” monodrama for bass/baritone, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, female chorus, and contrabass
I Heard an Angel Singing (2016) text: Mark Gustavson for soprano and fixed media
Fisherman Songs (2010) text: collection for bass/baritone and piano
The Four Love Songs (1984) for soprano, 2 clarinets, 2 percussion, viola and cello
The Three Mirrors (1979) text: Edwin Muir for soprano, flute(alto), clarinet, trombone, piano(hammond organ), 3 percussion (tuned water glasses)
Solo instrumental

The Lounge Pianist (2010) for vocalizing pianist
Trickster (1997) for clarinet solo
Dissolving Images (1986) for piano solo
Electroacoustic

Wingbeat (2021) for harp & 2-channel fixed audio
I Heard an Angel Singing (2016) for soprano & 2-channel fixed audio
Footfalls (2015) for fixed media
Air (2014) for fixed media
Multimedia

In-between (2020) for 2-channel fixed audio & video (Chris Myhr, artist)