(Photo credit: Claire McAdams)
Professor of Composition and Theory, Rice University's Shepherd School of Music B.A. Cum Laude (1983) Harvard University M.A. (1987) California Institute of the Arts Ph.D. (1993) Harvard University Honors and Grants: Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress National Endowment for the Arts Meet-the-Composer The Houston Arts Alliance The New England Foundation for the Arts Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program Fellowships: Wellesley Composers Conference The Tanglewood Institute The MacDowell Colony The Djerassi Resident Artists Colony Visiting Composer: The Bowdoin International Festival The FICA Festival at the University of Veracruz The Bremen Musikfest Baltimore's New Chamber Arts Festival Southwestern University SUNY - Buffalo Cleveland State University Composer-in-Residence: Houston's OrchestraX International Festival of Music, Morelia, Mexico |
Composer Anthony Brandt (b. 1961) earned his degrees from California Institute of the Arts (MA '87) and Harvard University (BA '83, PhD '93). His honors include a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, the Houston Arts Alliance, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program. He has been commissioned by Performing Arts Houston, the Louisiana Philharmonic, Opera in the Heights, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Da Camera of Houston, the SOLI ensemble, Houston Ballet II, the Bowdoin International Festival, the Moores School of Music Percussion Ensemble, the Webster Trio, the Fischer Duo, and others. He has been a fellow at the Wellesley Composers Conference, the Tanglewood Institute, the MacDowell Colony, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Colony, a Visiting Composer at the Bowdoin International Festival, the FICA Festival at the University of Veracruz, the Bremen Musikfest, Baltimore’s New Chamber Arts Festival, Southwestern University, SUNY- Buffalo and Cleveland State University, and Composer-in-Residence of Houston’s OrchestraX and the International Festival of Music in Morelia, Mexico. Dr. Brandt recently composed the music for the ballet LiveWire (2022) and chamber work Diabelli 200 (2023), collaborations with neuro-engineer Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal and the University of Houston BRAIN Center in which several of the performers wear portable EEG caps: these combinations of artistic performance and scientific experiment are among the first of their kind. His chamber opera Kassandra has been released on the Navona label. An album including his oratorio Maternity, with a libretto by David Eagleman, and chamber opera Ulysses, Home, with a libretto by Neena Beber, is also available from Navona. An album of his vocal music, including his chamber opera The Birth of Something, with a libretto by playwright Will Eno, is available on Albany Records (Troy 1144). His music is also available on the Crystal label.
Dr. Brandt is co-founder and Artistic Director of the Houston-based contemporary music ensemble Musiqa, two-time winners of Adventurous Programming Awards from Chamber Music America and ASCAP (2013 and '16). Musiqa has performed the music of over 200 living composers including over 70 world premieres, and collaborated on inter-disciplinary concerts with the Houston Ballet II, NobleMotion Dance, Open Dance Project, Dance of Asia America, Aurora Picture Show, the Houston Cinema Arts Society, Fotofest, the Alley Theater, Stages Repertory Theater, and numerous authors and visual artists. Musiqa’s free educational programs have served close to 70,000 students and teachers at over 240 Houston public schools and earned eleven awards from the National Endowment for the Arts.Musiqa recently founded the Cross-Country Chamber Consortium aimed at increasing diversity in modern chamber music repertoire. Dr. Brandt and neuroscientist David Eagleman have co-authored The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World. Their book has been published in fourteen countries, was the official selection of the 2018-19 Texas State Common Reading Experience, and inspired the Netflix documentary The Creative Brain hosted by Dr. Eagleman. It has been featured in a TIME magazine special issue on creativity, as well as in Nature, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Discover magazine, and numerous other print and broadcast media. Dr. Brandt has contributed chapters to the Oxford Handbook of Music and the Brain, Mobile Brain Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity, Creative Provocations: Speculations on the Future of Creativity, Technology & Learning, and the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Music and Language. He has published papers in the Creativity Research Journal, Frontiers in Psychology, Brain Connectivity, and the American Journal of Psychology. He is currently a co-PI in an NEA Research Lab examining the benefits of musical creativity for the elderly, as well as research studies involving music and dance, stroke recovery, and surgeon burnout. He is also the author of an innovative, web-based music appreciation course called Sound Reasoning, created for Rice University’s OpenStax. “Sound Reasoning” was awarded an Access to Artistic Excellence Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has organized three international conferences at Rice on “Exploring the Mind through Music," most recently in June 2016. Dr. Brandt is a Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. He has been awarded the University’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Professional Service and Leadership (2019), a George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching (2007), and a Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award (2001) |
Performers
Sopranos Karol Bennett, Lindsay Kessellman, and Penelope Shumate
Mezzo-soprano Megan Berti
Tenor Albert J Stanley
Baritones Christopher Besch, Liam Bonner, Michael Chioldi, Timothy Jones, and Mark Whatley
Pianists Brian Connelly, Tali Morgulis, Jon Kimura Parker, and Christopher Taylor
Conductors Emil Awad, John Axelrod, Richard Bado, Tomasz Golka, Jerry Hou, Eiki Isomura, Daniel Myssyk, Larry Rachleff, Joel Sachs, Jonathan Shames, Alastair Willis, and Scott Yoo
Ensembles
The Cassatt, Chiara, Del Sol, Enso, Flux, and Maia String Quartets, the Fischer Duo, the Webster Trio, the SOLI ensemble, Da Camera of Houston, the Moores School of Music Percussion Ensemble,the Shepherd School of Music Percussion Ensemble, the New Juilliard Ensemble, the Ensemble de las Rosas of Morelia, the Houston Chamber Choir, Opera in the Heights, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, the Shepherd School Orchestra, OrchestraX, the Seattle Youth Symphony, the Orchestra de Chambre d’Orphée of Belgium, and the Bremen Kammerphilharmonie
Collaborations:
Playwrights Neena Beber, Jennifer Haley and Will Eno
Author David Eagleman
Poets Rich Levy and Tony Hoagland
Visual Artist Jo Ann Fleischhauer
Composer Chapman Welch
Choreographer Oliver Halkowich
Lighting Designer Christina Giannelli
Sopranos Karol Bennett, Lindsay Kessellman, and Penelope Shumate
Mezzo-soprano Megan Berti
Tenor Albert J Stanley
Baritones Christopher Besch, Liam Bonner, Michael Chioldi, Timothy Jones, and Mark Whatley
Pianists Brian Connelly, Tali Morgulis, Jon Kimura Parker, and Christopher Taylor
Conductors Emil Awad, John Axelrod, Richard Bado, Tomasz Golka, Jerry Hou, Eiki Isomura, Daniel Myssyk, Larry Rachleff, Joel Sachs, Jonathan Shames, Alastair Willis, and Scott Yoo
Ensembles
The Cassatt, Chiara, Del Sol, Enso, Flux, and Maia String Quartets, the Fischer Duo, the Webster Trio, the SOLI ensemble, Da Camera of Houston, the Moores School of Music Percussion Ensemble,the Shepherd School of Music Percussion Ensemble, the New Juilliard Ensemble, the Ensemble de las Rosas of Morelia, the Houston Chamber Choir, Opera in the Heights, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, the Shepherd School Orchestra, OrchestraX, the Seattle Youth Symphony, the Orchestra de Chambre d’Orphée of Belgium, and the Bremen Kammerphilharmonie
Collaborations:
Playwrights Neena Beber, Jennifer Haley and Will Eno
Author David Eagleman
Poets Rich Levy and Tony Hoagland
Visual Artist Jo Ann Fleischhauer
Composer Chapman Welch
Choreographer Oliver Halkowich
Lighting Designer Christina Giannelli