Adrienne Albert
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Adrienne Albert (b. 1941) is an American Composer living and working in Santa Monica, California. Although relatively new to composition, Albert is established in the field with a recent NEA grant for a “symphony” about Homer, Alaska, now complete, and various other commissions, artist in residencies, and awards. Albert's work is performed internationally, in the US, in Europe, and extends to a recent set of Chinese performances.
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[edit] Solo Vocal performer
Albert’s first professional work in music was as a mezzo-soprano soloist. Albert collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, Phillip Glass, Gunther Schuller, and Igor Stravinsky among others. Her voice was preferred for parts written for pre-adolescent boys, and Igor Stravinsky is said to have referred to her as his “favorite boy alto”. Albert performed his setting of Edward Lear's poem The Owl and the Pussycat. Stravinsky’s fondness for the ambiguously gendered quality of her voice was such that he used Albert as the alto soloist in his Mass.
During this phase of her life Albert was involved in other diverse projects as a vocalist, ranging from advertising jingles, a microtonal performance of some pieces of Charles Ives' for CBS, and studio work for various pop bands in and around Los Angeles.
[edit] Conductor
From her vocal work in the 1960’s and 70’s Albert made a transition to the quite different work of conducting and arranging in the 1980’s. This was an important developmental step away the mind of the soloist and into a role of responsibility for every element of ensemble performance, with choirs, chamber groups and small orchestras.
[edit] Composer
In the 1990s, after a phase of study with Albert Harris and Stephen Mosko, Albert made a third significant shift in her work toward composition of original works funded through grants and commissions. Albert debuted in this endeavor with a Concerto for Alto Sax, Trumpet & Orchestra at the Mancini Institute in 1997, which she also conducted. Among Albert's better-known pieces are her Western Suite, Doppler Effect, L.A. Tango Nuevo, and Mirror Images. A recent work "Animalogy", a woodwind quintet, is one of the two winners of the Aeros Quintet Competition and will be played at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in May of 2008.
