PHILLIP BIMSTEIN
"Bimstein's compositions make me feel like I've taken a slow drive through a western landscape, meeting
along the way everyone from Georgia O'Keeffe to Tony Hillerman, Mark Twain, Neal Cassady, Raymond
Scott, Kurt Weill, Aphex Twin, and some of those grizzled geezers that populate the novels of Annie Proulx."
- John Adams, composer
"Phillip Bimstein uses the voices, natural sounds and culture of his adopted home in his compositions, and he practices politics with music in mind."
- National Public Radio's All Things Considered
Alternative classical composer Phillip Bimstein lives in Springdale, Utah, where he also served two terms as mayor. A recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet The Composer, American Composers Forum and Austria's Prix Ars Electronica, Bimstein's music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Bang on a Can Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and London's Royal Opera House.
Ensembles who have performed Bimstein's works include Relâche, Turtle Island String Quartet, Modern Mandolin Quartet, Present Music, Abramyan String Quartet, Sierra Winds, Equinox Chamber Players, the California E.A.R. Unit, the Robin Cox Ensemble and Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues.
A Starkland CD of Bimstein's music, Garland Hirschi's Cows, garnered rave reviews internationally in such publications as Stereo Review, Wired, Fanfare, Stereophile, and this from Schwann Opus: "A highly entertaining, populist-oriented collection of serious modern music. Bimstein's compositions are a virtual breath of fresh air."
Starkland released a second CD of Bimstein's compositions, Larkin Gifford's Harmonica, in the autumn of 2006. In The New York Times review of the CD, Steve Smith wrote, "the irresistible charm of Mr. Bimstein’s music has less to do with technology than with his uncanny knack for finding the music of everyday life." To see a pdf of The New York Times review, please CLICK HERE.
Bimstein was born in Chicago and is a graduate of Chicago Conservatory of Music, where he majored in theory & composition. In the 1980s he led the new wave band Phil 'n' the Blanks, whose three albums and six videos were college radio and MTV hits. After further studies at UCLA in composition, orchestration and conducting, Bimstein took a hiking trip to southern Utah and never left.
Fascinated by language and the ability of music to tell a story, he frequently incorporates text in his work. Refuge, his string quartet based on the book by Utah naturalist Terry Tempest Williams, was described as "sublime - elegant perfection" by the Deseret News. To hear Refuge, please CLICK HERE.
In 1997 Bimstein was awarded Meet The Composer's largest grant, the three-year New Residencies, during which he composed music that celebrates and explores the intimate relationship between the landscapes of the desert southwest and the many cultures that have inhabited the area.
In 2000 Bimstein received a Continental Harmony grant from the American Composers Forum, the National Endowment for the Arts and the White House Millennium Council to write The Bushy Wushy Rag, a work celebrating baseball and the city of St. Louis. It was featured in a nationally broadcast PBS special in October 2001. Bimstein received a second Continental Harmony grant in 2005 to compose Red Rock Rondo, a song cycle based on the historical and contemporary stories of his community. To hear Red Rock Rondo, please CLICK HERE.
In 2005 Bimstein composed Lockdown!, a techno tone poem based on the sounds and voices of a youth crisis center in southern Utah. In addition to public concerts, the work is being presented as dialogue-promoting outreach in youth detention facilities and prevention programs. To hear Lockdown!, please CLICK HERE.
In 2007 Bimstein composed Cats in the Kitchen for flute, oboe, meows, purrs, cracked eggs, sliced onions, buttered toast, sizzling skillets, spoons, knives, pepper grinder, toaster oven, pots, pans, draining dishwater, and pretty much everything else in the kitchen "sync." To hear Cats in the Kitchen, please CLICK HERE.
Bimstein also performs and writes for the chamber folk quartet blue haiku, whose CD, heat beneath the sand, was called "fascinating, fresh and engrossing" by Sing Out! Magazine.
Described by Outside Magazine as "America's only all-natural politician-composer," Bimstein served two terms as Springdale mayor. As mayor he was an outspoken advocate for protection of the environment and he has testified twice before Congress in support of Utahs wilderness. Due to his successful efforts to bring harmony to his previously divided community, Parade Magazine dubbed Bimstein, "The Man Who Brought Civility Back to Town."
Bimstein has served as chair of the Utah Humanities Council, chair of the art and humanities residency center, The MESA, vice-president of the American Music Center in New York, and is profiled in Who's Who in America. He is a frequent guest speaker on creativity, community and collaboration. Information about his music and other projects can be found at his website: http://www.bimstein.com
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