Donal Fox

1952 -

About

Donal Fox (b. 1952) received early training in the Western classical piano repertoire at the New England Conservatory of Music, but began rebelling early. He began composing in mixed idioms of jazz and classical as a teenager, studied at Boston's famous "jazz college," Berklee, and at 17 received a scholarship to study at the Tanglewood Music Center, summer home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Fox continued to study composition and theory under an impressive series of tutors. One of them, Gunther Schuller, had early on proposed the blending of jazz and European classical idioms in a concept he called "Third Stream." The tension in Fox’s career between two traditions has led to a unique and original style. Now Internationally acclaimed as a composer, pianist, and improviser, Donal Fox expertly fuses jazz, Afro-Latin and classical idioms into intricate new works and electrifying performances. Praised by The Boston Globe as “unique and utterly commanding,” Fox de- and reconstructs Bach, Piazzolla, Schumann, Monk, Schoenberg and more, adding propulsive grooves and using composed themes as springboards for glorious improvisational flights that blend baroque with bebop, twelve-tone techniques with twelve-bar blues. A Steinway Artist, Fox has premiered his works at such prestigious venues as Tanglewood, Carnegie Hall and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and has served as the first African-American composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony. Fox's fluency across genres has led to collaborations and recordings with the likes of Oliver Lake, David Murray, Quincy Troupe, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Maya Beiser and Hilary Hahn, along with the Richmond Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Among his many accolades, Fox is a Guggenheim Fellow, and a recent recipient of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award in Music.

Related Information

http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/short-bio/Donal-Fox, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5750972186db43d2804cb100/t/5787d630e6f2e11d7ccb038b/1468519984687/Donal+short+bio.pdf

Works by Donal Fox