Carson Kievman

Posting by Lynn Holst, former Associate Play Development for the New York Shakespeare Festival: Public Theater, New York City. Writing THE LIST, a compendium of artists produced and distributed by Independent Curators Inc. (ICI) (Susan Sollins, Founder & Founding Director)
“Through a departure from traditional forms of ‘serious’ new music and a need to better express his eclectic American Sensibility, Carson Kievman has created a controversial form of music experience especially exciting to a contemporary audience. His Soundtheater works integrate striking visual and sonic images and associations in events that explore possibilities of communication outside the normal concert experience, though often presented within this context. Hailed as a ‘Wizard’ by the Village Voice, Kievman’s works have also been called ‘Great Art’ by the Boston Globe, ‘Enthralling’ and ‘Tours de Farce’ by the New York Times, ‘A Sensation’ by the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, ‘Arresting by the Los Angeles Times, “A Major New Trend’ by the San Francisco Chronicle, and ‘Vigorously Innovative and Uplifting’ by Newsday. Kievman has opened up the experience of the concert (and music-theater) form. His work explores musical and personal relationships between an individual and his/her environment; between the artist and his/her work; between the audience and the artist; and between music, theater and visual art.” Kievman’s present work further abstracts contemporary life and seeks to find, through a purely intuitive/associative musical process, an authentic mythology of modern experience.”

CARSON KIEVMAN - UPDATED SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Carson Kievman has been the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts American Masterworks; Miami New Times Mastermind Award; Princeton University Research Fellowship; a Janet A. Hooker Charitable Trust Award; 2 MacDowell Colony Fellowships; Jury & Participant's Prizes at the 4th International Composer's Festival Zurich, Switzerland; NEA Composer / Librettist Fellowship; Rockefeller and Adolph Foundation awards for a music-theater productions at the Public Theater; Fromm Foundation at Harvard Commission; Koussevitzky Foundation Composer/Director Residency Tanglewood; Margaret Grant Composition Prize from Tanglewood; Leonard Bernstein Fellowship; 2 Lord Mayor of Darmstadt Fellowships at Ferienkürse Fur Neue Musik; Disney Fellowship at California Institute of the Arts; Naumburg Fellowship at Princeton University; and 2 BMI Awards.
Carson Kievman has created 7 symphonies including 1- ASPEN, 2- 2(42), 3- HURRICANE, 4- BIODIVERSITY, 5- SYMBIOSIS 6- NO MAN’S LAND, 7- BEATHE, 9 full length multidisciplinary/multimedia operas including “TESLA”, “INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, The Surrender of Self in Mystical Contemplation”, “FAIRY TALES, Songs of the Dandelion Woman”, “CALIFORNIA MYSTERY PARK”, “HAMLET”, “A GLASS BEAD GAME”, “LADIES VOICES”, “RED LIGHT-GREEN LIGHT” and “WAKE UP, IT’S TIME TO GO TO BED!”, 23 music-theater works as well as works for chamber ensembles, piano, violin, voice, choir plus multiple experimental multimedia works. He recently moved to a tropical bungalow in Sarasota and is at work on 5 new compositions: PASSION LOVE GRAVITY (opera); FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR (opera); VIOLA (concerto); VIOLIN (concerto); and CELLO (concerto). To participate in the development and/or premieres of these new works contact Intelligent Company Publishers icp@mysteryparkarts.org

Carson Kievman’s work follows an independent course that blends new music with the theatrical, visual and literary arts. His symphonies, operas, chamber music, music-theater and experimental works have been performed internationally in stage, concert, dance, and museum settings, from SoBe Arts to the Berkeley Art Museum; Ysbreker (Amsterdam), the Pennsylvania Ballet (Philadelphia), The Public Theater (New York City), the Rote Fabrik (Zurich), the Tanglewood Music Festival (Lenox), and the Nationaltheater Mannheim (Germany). His works have been broadcast by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); Nord Deutsche Rundfunk, Berlin; Radio France, Paris; National Public Radio (NPR) and other media outlets worldwide. His composition teachers and mentors have included Earle Brown, Olivier Messiaen, Morton Subotnick, James Tenney and Luigi Nono.

Carson Kievman’s music attempts to tap into a higher state of illumination, evoking something otherworldly, striving to touch the nonliteral and pre-verbal incandescence. While the inspiration for his work is grounded in personal experience, he explores closer contact with the “luminosity of life’s intangibles.”