Brian Fennelly

With a degree in mechanical engineering (Union College, 1958), Brian Fennelly began his career as an officer in the Air Force, with service in the U. S. and Korea. After receiving a B. A. from Union (1963), he entered Yale on a Woodrow Wilson fellowship, where he studied music composition and theory with Mel Powell, Allen Forte, Gunther Schuller and George Perle (M.Mus 1965, Ph.D. 1968). From 1968 to 1997 he was Professor of Music in the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In addition to a Guggenheim fellowship, his awards include three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two commissions from the Koussevitsky Foundation as well as commissions from the Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and others. In 1997 he received a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Recently he has held composer residencies at the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Bellagio, Italy and the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. His music has been awarded prizes in many competitions, which include the Goffredo Petrassi Competition for Orchestral Music (1993), International Trumpet Guild Competition (First Prize, 1990), the Louisville Orchestra New Music Competition (First Prize [Whitney Prize], 1986), Shreveport Symphony Competition (1981), and the Premio Citta di Trieste (1981). His catalogue includes 15 works for orchestra, 8 choral works, over 40 works for chamber groups, and more than 20 works for a variety of solo instruments. His orchestral and chamber music appears on four solo CDs (Albany, New World, CRI) as well as other works on the Pro Viva, First Edition, Capstone, and New Ariel labels. Releases of orchestral music include Fantasy Variations, In Wildness is the Preservation of the World, On Civil Disobedience, Chrysalis, Thoreau Fantasy No. 2, and A Sprig of Andromeda, the last five all Thoreau-inspired works. Brian Fennelly’s music has been performed by several orchestras including the Rochester Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and The Louisville Orchestra, as well as by chamber ensembles such as the American and Empire Brass Quintets and the Concord, Audubon, and Pro Arte String Quartets. His choral music has been sung by the Gregg Smith Singers and the New York Virtuoso Singers, among others. International performances include two at the Warsaw Autumn (Poland) and four at the ISCM World Music Days (Iceland, Israel, Belgium, and Canada), with recordings by The Louisville Orchestra, Polish Chamber Orchestra, Prague Radio Orchestra, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Polish Radio National Symphony, as well as acclaimed chamber ensembles such as the Da Capo Chamber Players and the Dorian Wind Quintet. Fennelly’s music is published by Margun Music (Schirmer), Pro Nova (Munich), Ricordi (Milan), and American Composers Edition (New York), among others. In addition to composing and teaching, he has been active as a pianist and also as an officer and board member in a number of music organizations; he also co-directs the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, which he founded in 1976. Fennelly resides in Kingston, New York with his wife Jacqueline, who played French horn with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic for many years. Liam Fennelly, a son from a previous marriage, is a professional viola da gamba player living and working in Europe.