Craig Walsh

Craig Walsh
Birth name	Craig Thomas Walsh
Born	(1971-04-11) April 11, 1971 Somerville, New Jersey, USA
Genres	Concert Music Electronic Art Music Experimental Music
Occupation(s)	Composer Musician Professor
Instruments	Piano Composition
Years active	1994–present

Craig Thomas Walsh (born April 11, 1971, in Somerville, New Jersey) is an American composer.

Walsh studied at the Mannes School of Music and Brandeis University. He has received numerous awards for his work, including grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Meet the Composer and ASCAP, among others. He is an associate professor of music composition at the University of Arizona. Walsh's music is recorded on Albany Records, Centaur Records and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States CD series.

Since the 1990s, Walsh has focused on a variety of chamber music projects, both acoustic and electronic. His work has been described as “bright and snappy music rooted in modernism, but also referencing the carefree attitude of American pop culture...having brightly contrasting, sharply spliced sections, funkily angular rhythmic loops, motives that are disjunct and dissonant, but function a bit like pop hooks, and harmonies that aren’t tonal, but also tend to accept the idea that a '[tonal] center' isn’t a bad thing” (Fanfare Magazine, March/April 2009). In 2008 Albany Records released Walsh's first solo CD, Bugaboo, with the New York New Music Ensemble.

Selected works

• The Destruction of the Temple of Heaven for piano and 9 instruments (2012)
• String Quartet (2010)
• Sugar Touch for alto saxophone and electro-acoustic music (2009)
• Cookin' the Books for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion (2008)
• Neshanic Wanes for piano trio (2007)
• Pointing Out Your Ruse for violin and percussion (2005)
• Terma for soprano and digital media (2004)
• Chaconnesque for clarinet, viola, and piano (2003)
• Bugaboo for chamber orchestra (2002)
• Schism for clarinet and viola (2000)
• Lines for piano solo (2000)
• Radix for digital media (1999)
• Junket for digital media (1999)
• Pipeline Burst Cache for amplified cello and digital media (1998)
• Fallout City for digital media (1997)
• Zook for trumpet, clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1997)
• Shifting Trajectories for digital media (1996)
• Citrine for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and harpsichord (1995)
• Zoom for violin and piano (1995)
• 0 to 33 in 1098.5 for violin, clarinet (1994)
• Black Scissors for prepared piano(1993)

Recordings

• Sugar Touch for alto saxophone and electro-acoustic music on the album "Dragon: Swarimius Presents". Todd Rewoldt, saxophone. Voce House Records (2012)
• Pointing out your Ruse for violin and percussion on the album "Playing the Edge". Mark Rush, violin. Albany Records (TROY 1199) (2010)
• Bugaboo, The Chamber Music of Craig Walsh featuring The New York New Music Ensemble, Albany Records (TROY 1047) (2008)
• Terma for soprano and electro-acoustic music, Society of Electro-Acoustic Music In the US CD series vol. 14 (2004)
• Schism for clarinet and viola, Centaur Records (2002)
• Pipeline Burst Cache for cello and electro-acoustic music, Society of Electro-Acoustic Music In the US CD series vol. 9 (1999)
• Pipeline Burst Cache for cello and electro-acoustic music, Fondazione Russolo-Pratella, XXI Concorso Internazionale Luigi Russolo Di Musica Elettroacustica (1999)

Degrees

• Mannes School of Music, B.Mus. (1993)
• Brandeis University, M.F.A. (1997)
• Brandeis University, Ph.D. (1999)

Major teachers include Laurie Altman, Martin Boykan, Eric Chasalow, Robert Cuckson, David Loeb, and Yehudi Wyner.

External links

• [3] Faculty profile from The University of Arizona.
• [4] Profile from ArkivMusic online.
• [5] Embassy of the United States of America, announcement for the performance in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• [6] Review from New York Classical Review and Manhattan String Quartet at Tenri Institute.
• [7] Review from the New York Times, Manhattan String Quartet at Tenri Institute.