Steven Lebetkin

Composer, Speaker, Thought Leader

Harvard University Supports Multiple Performances Of Lebetkin’s Symphony For Band And Piano Concerto – national consortium commission

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Mark Olson, Director of Harvard University Band and Wind Ensemble, has announced his support for multiple performances of Steve Lebetkin’s Symphony For Band and Concerto for Piano and Winds. Maestro Olson’s announcement came in the form of letter support of a large national consortium composer’s commission to the membership of the College Band Directors National Association.

Lebetkin’s two works for the concert band community are a shift in focus for this symphonic composer to address the requests from the concert band community to make a meaningful contribution to the wind repertoire for major serious musical works.

The Symphony For Band is Lebetkin’s first work for this instrumental combination. The Piano Concerto, originally scored for symphony orchestra and premiered in 2018 in South America, is being re-scored for an approximate 24 piece chamber wind ensemble. The wind repertoire needs more works for this combination whose leading work is the Stravinsky Piano Concerto of 1924.

Performances of both works nationwide are being scheduled for calendar 2019.

Recordings of both works can be found on Lebetkin’s YouTube channel.

 

Symphony For Band

Piano Concerto -Orchestral Version

 

 

 

 

Continuing Education For Composers – The Need And Opportunity

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I’ve been composing and studying music for a long time. It strikes me that although there are more composers in the world than ever before, the effort and corresponding access by composers for further compositional study is non-existent. Professionals in all walks of life and at any level proudly continue their advanced studies; many states even mandate this in order to maintain the privilege of licensure.

Composition instruction at conservatories and universities is quite lumpy, to say the least. And therefore the work of many talented (and some not so talented) composers follows. Technique often falls wayside to technology, sound design, and the unfounded commercial message that somehow learning more about craft can interfere with the creative spirit.

Many of us believe that quality and craft trump volume and technology. The more you know, the better the music, and the joy of great music we wish to share with the world.

I’m doing my share to give back. Not only to compose the very best music that I can, but to pass down to others the advanced compositional techniques I was privileged to learn from great masters of the twentieth century that learned from others that preceded them.

Steve Lebetkin, Composer in Chief, Composition Online [email protected]

Contact us now!
Live and Online Mini-Master Classes for Composers that seek to learn more.

Perpetuum Immobile – New solo album by Steve Lebetkin

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Perpetuum Immobile is the title track to my solo album.

In this album I am combining the elements of New Age, minimalism, and classical music in the expansion of music that is accessible to a wide listener audience.

This new approach I call New Age Chamber Music.

Composed and performed by Steven R. Lebetkin

 

 

Composer’s Tools For Discriminating Conductors – Programming New Music

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Composer’s Tools For Discriminating Conductors – Programming New Music

Conductor’s Guild Conference

Ft Worth, Texas

January 13, 2018

 

If you are a conductor or head of programming or on the board of a symphony orchestra, Steve Lebetkin can help you make better decisions on merit, not gender, when it comes to new music.

Steve Lebetkin, Composer-In-Chief, Composition Online [email protected]

Contact us now!
Live and Online Mini-Master Classes for Composers that seek to learn more.

Symphony For Band

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Symphony For Band was composed for a college level or professional concert band. This work is derived from my Piano Sonata composed in December 2017, and scored for concert band in March 2018.

Symphony For Band was composed for a college level or professional concert band. This work is derived from my Piano Sonata composed in December 2017, and scored for concert band in March 2018. I composed this work for concert band to address the enormous need for new contemporary music for this idiom and to raise the level of composition for this instrumental ensemble. The concert band is a beautiful ensemble and gives rise to music that is effective and accessible to a large cross section of the population without sounding commercial or crass.

 

Libera Me Fanfare For Freedom For Symphony Orchestra 2017

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Libera Me Fanfare For Freedom For Symphony Orchestra 2017

The genesis of this piece came as a result of the planning of the world premiere of my Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall with maestra Amy Andersson. Amy asked me if I had an overture to open the program that was centered around the concerto, but unfortunately I didn’t have one. Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man was programmed. I vowed to have one composed and ready as a concert opener for future performances.

Within a few weeks after the successful violin concerto premiere, I began work on a new fanfare. In consideration of Copland’s ever so popular fanfare, I learned that his work was a wartime composition; we live in different times and a fanfare for liberation and freedom is more reflective of what our nation and the world needs today. Hence, Libera Me (“free me”), a Fanfare for Freedom was born.

This short piece has three sections, which are reflective of humankind’s struggle for freedom. Part 1 touches upon the pain and agony of the captivity of the human spirit. Part 2 centers on the struggle to break free and gain freedom. In part 3, the human spirit has become free and in great celebration, and rises up in triumph to end the piece.