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The American composer and pianist, Andrew Violette, studied at the High School of Music and Art in New York City from 1968 to 1971 and there earned the Regent's Scholarship. He studied composition with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions and counterpoint with Otto Luening at the Juilliard School of Music in New York from 1971 to 1975, where he earned his BMus and MMus, as well as the Lado Prize in Composition. He was later a student at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in New York City from 1994 to 1996.
Andrew Violette has composed music for orchestra (Dawn (1988); Fanfare (1992); Music In 6 Parts (2000))]; chamber music, vocal music, piano solo, and organ solo. His works that have been performed throughout the USA. Among his honors are seven grants from Meet the Composer (1977, 1982-1987), three fellowships at the MacDowell Colony (1983-1985) and fellowships at the Yaddo Arts Colony and the Virginia Center for the Arts (both 1999).
As a pianist, Andrew Violette has given numerous solo recitals of his own music, as well as new pieces by other composers. He worked as an accompanist to dance classes for Robert Blanshine, Nanette Cherrise, Merce Cunningham, and Janet Panetta in New York City throughout the 1980's.
Andrew Violette has a deep affinity with J.S. Bach’s clavier and organ music and has been performing it since his youth. What distinguishes his performances is that they challenge, even alter, commonplace perceptions of time and mood. Extreme tempi coupled with a preternatural clarity of detail create a hallucinogenic world where short, fast pieces seem to last considerably longer than their performance times would suggest, while longer, slow pieces are telescoped, and flash by in a moment of subjective time.
Andrew Violette Violette is also active in other positions. He served as music director of both the Lutheran Church of Our Savior's Atonement and its concert series Cornerstone Center from 1975 to 1988. Furthermore, he served as music director of the Battery Dance Company, the Paul Sanasardo Dance Company and the Peggy Florin Dancers in New York City in the 1980's. He was a contemplative Benedictine monk at St. Mary's Monastery in Massachusetts from 1988 to 1994. He has served as music director of the St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope, New York since 1996. He taught as an adjunct instructor of literature and materials of music at the Juilliard School of Music in 1975-1976.
The American Composers Alliance publishes his works from 1970–89; all later works are self-published. |
