Pamela Madsen

Pamela Madsen is a composer, performer, theorist and curator of new music. From massive immersive concert-length projects, solo works, chamber music to multi-media opera collaborations her work focuses on issues of social change, exploration of  image, music, text and the environment. With a Ph.D. in Music Composition from UCSD, studies with Brian Ferneyhough, Mellon Foundation Doctoral Research Award in theory at Yale University, Post-Doctoral research in Music Technology at IRCAM, Paris, and Deep Listening Certificate with Pauline Oliveros, her theoretical research focuses on the evolution of compositional thought, improvisation, electronic music, and women in music.

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Her works have been commissioned and premiered world-wide by such artists as Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Brightwork newmusic, ModernMedieval, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Tony Arnold, Nicholas Isherwood, Stacey Fraser, Claire Chase, Jane Rigler, Anne LaBerge, Brian Walsh, Lisa Moore, Vicki Ray, Aron Kallay, Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, Ashley Bathgate, Trio Solisti, New York New Music Ensemble, Either/Or, yesaroun’ duo, California Ear Unit, Verdehr Trio, Zeitgeist, JACK, Ethel, Lyris, Formalist and Arditti string quartets with multi-media collaborations with visual artists Quintan Ana Wikswo, Camille Seaman, Jimena Sarno and Judy Chicago. Major concert-length projects include her National Endowment for the Arts and New Music USA supported Oratorio for the Earth;  Luminous Etudes: Visions of the Black Madonna of Montserrat;  Luminosity: Passions of Marie Curie multi-media opera;  Melting Away: Gravity for orchestra, with Arctic photographer Camille Seaman;  We are All Sibyls-Envisioning the Future Project multi-media opera installation with visual artist Judy Chicago. 

Selected as an Alpert Award Panelist, Creative Capital artist “on the radar” with awards from National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Meet the Composer, American Scandinavian Foundation, artist residency fellowships at MacDowell Colony, UCross, Women’s International Studies Center, Russia/Siberia Concert tour, Pulsar Festival, Denmark, she is a frequent guest artist at festivals and universities worldwide. She is Director of the Annual New Music Festival, InterArts Collaborative Projects at Cal State Fullerton where she is Professor of Music Composition, Music Theory and Director of the New Music Ensemble.  

 

Madsen
The Consecrating Mother

"live" in Meng Hall, Feb 21, 2019 California State University Fullerton, New Music Festival performed by TwoSense: Ashley Bathgate and Lisa Moore

 
 

Madsen
Now the Hour Bows Down

Now the Hour Bows Down/Tenebrae from ORATORIO FOR THE EARTH-Kama-River of Stars commissioned and premiered by bass baritone solo-Nicholas Isherwood and electronics for The Electric Voice 2019

“…a gripping essay of powerfully thrusting, thickly scored micro-tones.”
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

“Pamela Madsen’s Sea Change, left a very strong impression with me. . .  an absolutely beautiful and somewhat impressionistic work…”
—Daniel Coombs, Audiophile Audition


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