vanstiefel.com

Van Stiefel

Composer and guitarist

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Van Stiefel composes music for orchestra, chamber ensemble, voice, the computer, and the electric guitar. He has worked with a variety of performing artists and ensembles including: Eliot Fisk and the Vega String Quartet, the Nash Ensemble (London), Thamyris (Atlanta), the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, the Talujon Percussion Ensemble (New York), the Sap Dream Electric Guitar Quartet (New York) and the New Jersey Symphony. His work is included on a compilation of new music for classical guitar entitled Soepa,  by recording artist Benjamin Verdery. Significant commissions include those from the Atlanta Olympic Festival, Arts Festival of Atlanta, and the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. Stiefel graduated from Yale College and has a Masters in performance from the Yale School of Music; in 2003, he completed the Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton University.

Stiefel is Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at West Chester University School of Music in Pennsylvania. With his wife, artist Caroline Lathan-Stiefel and children Sam and Charlotte, he moved from Montreal, Quebec where he was composer-in-residence at the SPCL and Faculty Lecturer in Music Theory at Schulich School of Music of McGill University.



 

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"...a revelation of music writing and making...a great listening experience...There are wide swaths of ensemble where instrument registers are spread out to give a spacious, cloud-like feeling. It is as though you can see through the musical fabric. At other times, the writing is more dense and compact, but in any case the material is always moving..."Juniper" is a major new addition to the guitar repertoire."

Roger Cope