News
-
Point of Tranquility featured as Composition of the Week of April 11
The World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, known as WASBE, featured Kenneth Fuchs’s Point of Tranquility as Composition of the Week starting April 11. Fuchs composed the work initially for the United States Coast Guard Band, which recorded it for a disc released by Naxos in 2020. See WASBE page here » Hear excerpts here »
-
Buffalo Symphony Orchestra premières Point of Tranquility
At the request of the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Fuchs reconceived for orchestra the original “Idyll for Winds, Brass, and Percussion After a Painting by Morris Louis.” Conductor JoAnn Falletta led the orchestra in première performances on March 19 and 20 in Kleinhans Music Hall. Buffalo Rising called this concert possibly the “best of the season,” describing Point of Tranquility as “accessible, sweeping, romantic” and “refreshingly different.” Read the review »
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine records music of Kenneth Fuchs
Centaur Records has released Poems & Rhapsodies, a disc including American Rhapsody (Romance for Violin and Orchestra) by Kenneth Fuchs and recorded by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, with Volodymyr Sirenko, conductor, and Solomiya Ivakhiv, violin. Ms. Ivakhiv is a colleague of Kenneth Fuchs at the University of Connecticut, where she is coordinator of strings and associate professor of violin and viola. Read two reviews here »
Ellis-Beauregard Foundation awards its 3rd annual composer award to Kenneth Fuchs
The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation has announced that Kenneth Fuchs is the recipient of its 3rd annual Composer Award. With the Award, Fuchs will create a new work to be performed in 2023 by the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. Fuchs, a Grammy Award-winning composer and professor of composition at the University of Connecticut, was selected through a juried national competition and chosen from over 225 applicants. The jury was comprised of composers Augusta Read Thomas and Adam Schoenberg and conductor Mei-Ann Chen.- Reflecting on the jury’s decision, Thomas said, “Kenneth Fuchs has an exceptional ear for pitch, harmony, rhythm, and timbre which, allied to his vivid and flexible imagination, results in lyrical, elegant, compelling, and personal compositions.”
- Schoenberg echoed Thomas’s thoughts: “Kenneth is a gifted composer who writes deeply personal and expressive works. His level of craftsmanship, meticulously detailed scores, and gorgeous orchestrations made his music stand out.”
- Looking ahead to the premiere, Chen noted, “Captivating and engaging, Mr. Fuchs’ music will be … a highly anticipated spotlight in the Bangor Symphony’s next season!”
Bill Holab Music publishes music of Kenneth Fuchs
Composers Richard Danielpour and Kenneth Fuchs, with their publisher Bill Holab Photo: Graham Hebel
Kenneth Fuchs has joined the elite roster of distinguished contemporary composers published by Bill Holab Music. Fuchs’s debut publications include his Bass Trombone Concerto (in versions for orchestra, band, and piano reduction) and Point of Tranquility (Idyll for Winds, Brass and Percussion After a Painting by Morris Louis). JoAnn Falletta will lead the world première of the orchestral setting of Point of Tranquility with the Buffalo Philharmonic, March 19 & 20, 2022; the score will be available following the première. Future works will include Cloud Slant (Concerto for Orchestra After Three Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler) and Solitary the Thrush (Concerto for Flute and Orchestra). Publications are available at Bill Holab Music.Naxos releases Point of Tranquility in August 2020
Commander Adam WIlliamson with Kenneth Fuchs
The United States Coast Guard Band, stationed at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, has recorded an album of works for symphonic winds by Kenneth Fuchs. The album debuted at #9 on the Amazon Hot 100 Classical Releases and remained in the Top 20 for five consecutive weeks, an unprecedented achievement for an album of wind band music. See a video on the recording and a video about the title composition, Point of Tranquility. Band Director Commander Adam WIlliamson conducts. The album (Naxos Wind Band Classics 8.573567) includes
- Discover the Wild
- Point of Tranquility, composed for the Coast Guard Band
- From the Field to the Sky
- Rush (Saxophone Concerto) (live performance, Greg Case, soloist)
- United Artists (for band)
- Christina’s World
- Forever Free (for band)
Fuchs composes Orion Indigo
Kenneth Fuchs composed Orion Indigo for Amy Dickson, saxophone virtuoso in London, who asked composer friends to write pieces reflecting how they’re feeling at this time of isolation (interview followed by performance). Performance here » • Interview here »Fuchs CD receives GRAMMY® Award
The Recording Academy announced at the 61st annual awards ceremony in Los Angeles, February 10, 2019, that Kenneth Fuchs’s album “Piano Concerto ‘Spiritualist’; Poems of Life; Glacier; Rush” won the 2018 GRAMMY Award in the category Best Classical Compendium. Fuchs joined conductor JoAnn Falletta on the GRAMMY stage to accept the award, which also went to producer Tim Handley.Fuchs composes bass trombone concerto
Kenneth Fuchs, Wesley Mayhew, bass trombone, and Director Adam WIlliamson, United States Coast Guard Band
A consortium of 21 outstanding bass trombonists commissioned Kenneth Fuchs to write a Bass Trombone Concerto. The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christian Lindberg and featuring soloist Randall Hawes, bass trombonist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, performed the world première on December 15, 2018, at the Lätzsch Trombone Festival in Enschede, The Netherlands. Fuchs created versions for both orchestra and band. The United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” conducted by Leader and Commander Colonel Andrew J. Esch, performed the band version March 9, 2019, at the American Trombone Workshop. Bass trombonists Gerry Pagano (St. Louis Symphony Orchestra), John Rojak (American Brass Quintet), and Russ Zokaites (Morehead State University) shared the solo line.
Russ Zokaites & Mark Gibson, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, Lead Commissioners
David Bobroff, Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Dennis Bubert, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
Justin Clark, Berne Symphony Orchestra, Switzerland
Capt. Kenneth Collins & MU1 Michael J. Brown, United States Navy Band, Washington, D.C.
George Curran, New York Philharmonic & Rutgers University
Jeff Dee, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Scott J. Dunn, Baldwin High School, Baldwin, New York
John Engelkes, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Col. Andrew J. Esch & MSG Sam Woodhead, United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” Washington, D.C.
Kyle Gordon, Houston Grand Opera Orchestra
Randall Hawes, Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Col. Larry H. Lang & SMSgt Jay Heltzer, United States Air Force Band, Washington, D.C.
Gabriel Langfur, Boston University
James Markey, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Steve Norrell, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York City
Peter Norton, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Gerry Pagano, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
John Rojak, American Brass Quintet
Nicholas Schwartz, New York City Ballet Orchestra
CDR Adam Williamson & MU1 Wesley Mayhew, United States Coast Guard Band, New London, Connecticut-
Surprised by Beauty: A Listener’s Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music
Surprised by Beauty by Robert R. Reilly has been released in a revised and expanded edition that devotes a chapter to the music of Kenneth Fuchs. The chapter collects previous writings (some quoted on the Reviews page of this website), including the following appreciations of the music of Kenneth Fuchs:
- “There is little in contemporary music that is as directly expressive as the music of Kenneth Fuchs. It goes right to the heart and stays there. If you think America’s song has already been sung, you need to listen to him.”
- “Fuchs is an exemplar of the recovery of American music.”
- “He is endowed with a major melodic gift.”
- “Like Aaron Copland, Fuchs has a way of capturing the stirrings of the human heart and the yearnings of the soul in highly spirited, soaring music. His works carry within themselves an inimitably American sense of expectancy, of horizons glimpsed and striven for, and, finally, of boldly announced arrivals.”