Composers

Jeffrey Mumford

1955 -

About

Jeffrey Mumford (b. 1955) has received numerous fellowships, grants, awards and commissions. Awards include the "Academy Award in Music" from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, and an ASCAP Aaron Copland Scholarship. He was also the winner of the inaugural National Black Arts Festival/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition. Other grants have been awarded by the Ohio Arts Council, Meet the Composer, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music Inc., the ASCAP Foundation, and the University of California. Mumford's most notable commissions include those from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and the Library of Congress (co-commission), the BBC Philharmonic, the San Antonio, Chicago & National Symphonies (National Symphony twice), Washington Performing Arts, the Network for New Music, ‘cellist Mariel Roberts, the Fulcrum Point New Music Project (through New Music USA), Duo Harpverk (Iceland), the Sphinx Consortium, the Cincinnati Symphony (twice), the VERGE Ensemble /National Gallery of Art/Contemporary Music Forum, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust, the Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA, Cincinnati radio station WGUC, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, and the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress. His music has been performed extensively, by major orchestras, soloists, and ensembles, both in the United States and abroad, including London, Paris, Reykjavik, Vienna, The Hague, Russia and Lithuania. Current projects include for Clare, a new work for solo piano commissioned by pianist Clare Longendyke (www.clarelongendyke.com) as part of her project entitled "UnRaveled", a project responding to and reimagining Ravel's piano music, and a CD of recent concerti. Recent and forthcoming performances include the premiere of fleeting cycles of layered air by violinist Miranda Cuckson (www.mirandacuckson.com) as part of the 2021 Fromm Concert series at Harvard University, the premiere of let us breathe by cellist Dan Culnan as part of the Cincinnati Symphony's "Fanfare" series (summer 2020), 2020-2021 performances of eight musings . . . revisiting memories by violinist Gabriela Diaz (www.gabrieladiazviolin.com) at the New England Conservatory of Music, . . . becoming by the NYU New Music Ensemble, conducted by Wayne DuMaine, eight aspects of appreciation II by violinist Gabriela Diaz and cellist Francesca McNeely (www.francescamcneely.com) at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., an expanding distance of multiple voices by violinist Alexandra Osborne as part of the 21st Century Consort's season in Washington D.C, and eight aspects of appreciation by Psappha in Manchester, United Kingdom in October 2020. Highlights of future seasons include a double concerto for violin & cello and orchestra for Lauren Cauley (www.laurencauley.com) and Mariel Roberts (www.marielroberts.com), brightness dispersed, serving as a Senior composer at the June in Buffalo Festival with composer colleagues David Felder, Stefano Gervasoni, Hilda Paredes, Robert H.P. Platz, and Augusta Read Thomas, a concerto for 'cello & string orchestra for Mariel Roberts (www.marielroberts.com) and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn (www.thesob.org) directed by Eli Spindel, verdant cycles of deepening spring with Lauren Cauley, soloist, and the Chicago Composers Orchestra (www.chicagocomposersorchestra.org) directed by Randall West, and unfolding waves, a concerto for pianist Pina Napolitano (www.pinanapolitano.com). Mr. Mumford will be a guest composer at the 2021 Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, where performance faculty include a present (Ronald Copes) and former member (Joel Krosnick) of the Juilliard Quartet, pianists Roberto Plano and Robert McDonald, and Laurie Smukler as Artistic Director and faculty member. A notable new recording is two Elliott carter tributes by pianist Pina Napolitano as part of her new critically acclaimed CD "Tempo e Tempi" (Odradek Records ODCCDR378). Mumford has taught at the Washington Conservatory of Music, served as Artist-in-Residence at Bowling Green State University, and served as assistant professor of composition and Composer-in-Residence at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. He is currently Distinguished Professor at Lorain County Community College in Northern Ohio.

Related Information

Works by Jeffrey Mumford

Title Collection Voice Type Range Poet
Diamonds Suspended in a Galaxy of Clouds Soprano Pedro Salinas
Dream Dust Two Songs for Mezzo Soprano Mezzo-Soprano Langston Hughes
Low Anchored Cloud Mezzo-Soprano Henry David Thoreau
Lullaby Soprano Mumford
Orage Soprano Mumford
Two Haiku Settings: Of Place and Love Two Songs for Mezzo Soprano Soprano Sonia Sanchez
Title Published Size Solo with Ensemble Duration Range Level Orchestration
. . . and symphonies of deepening light . . . expanding . . . ever cavernous Yes Full Orchestra 10-20 Professional (4,4,4,2) (4,2,2,1) (timpani, marimba, 2 harps, piano) (strings)
a dance into reflected daylight Yes Full Orchestra 10-20 Professional (2,2,2,2,) (4,2,2,1) (harp, piano) (strings)
a distance of unfolding light: rhapsody for violin & orch. Yes Full Orchestra Violin 10-20 Professional (2,2,2,2) (4,2,2,1) (vibraphone, harp) (strings)
a layer of vivid stillness Yes Cello Choir Cello 5-10 Professional ‘cello solo, 12 ‘cellos
a still radiance within dark air Yes Full Orchestra Piano 10-20 Professional piano solo, (1,1,1,1,) (2,2,2,0) (marimba, vibraphone, harp) (strings)
amid the light of quickening memory Yes Full Orchestra 5-10 Professional (2,2,2,2,) (4,2,2,1) (marimba, vibraphone, harp) (strings)
as the air softens in dusklight Yes Full Orchestra 5-10 Professional (2,2,3,2) (4,2,2,1) (vibraphone, harp) (strings)
becoming . . . Yes Chamber Piano 10-20 Professional (piano solo, flute, horn, mar., vib., harp, 2 vlns., vla., vlc., bass)
billowing pockets brightly layered Yes Chamber Cello 10-20 Professional ‘cello solo, (1,1,1,1,) (harp) (strings)
distinct echoes of glimmering daylight Yes Full Orchestra 10-20 Professional (2,2,2,2) (4,2,2,1) (vibraphone, harp) (strings)
murmurs of light . . . becoming still Yes String Orchestra under 5 Professional strings
of fields unfolding . . . echoing depths of resonant light Yes Full Orchestra Cello 10-20 Professional ‘cello solo (2,2,2,2) (4,2,2,1) (marimba, vibraphone, harp) (strings)
of radiances blossoming in expanding air Yes Full Orchestra Cello 10-20 Professional ‘cello solo (1,1,1,1) (2,1,1,0) (marimba, vibraphone, harp) (strings)
the comfort of his voice Yes Full Orchestra 10-20 Professional (4,4,2,2) (4,2,2,1) (marimba, vibraphone, harp, piano) (strings)
three rhapsodies for ‘cello & strings Yes String Orchestra Cello 10-20 Professional ‘cello solo, strings
through dancing echoes spreading softly: concerto for orchestra Yes Full Orchestra 10-20 Professional (4,4,4,2) (4,2,2,1) (timpani, harp, piano) (strings)
verdant and shimmering air: four views of a reflected forest Yes Full Orchestra 5-10 Professional (3,3,3,2) (4, 3,3,1) (timpani, vibraphone, harp) (strings)
Viola Concerto Yes Full Orchestra Viola 20+ Professional viola solo (2,2,2,2) (2,2,2,0) (timpani, vibraphone, harp) (strings)
Violin Concerto No. 1 Yes Full Orchestra Violin 20+ Professional violin solo (2,1,2,1) (0,2,2,0) (piano, percussion) (strings)
within a cloudburst of echoing brightness Yes Full Orchestra under 5 Professional (3,3,3,2) (4,3,3,1) (timpani, vibraphone, harp, piano) (strings)
Composer Title Work Instrumentation Level Number of Movements Accompanied Size Duration Range
Jeffrey Mumford a landscape of interior resonances Piano 3 No Solo 10-20
Jeffrey Mumford A Toccata for November Organ 1 No Solo