Fredrick Gifford – BIO

Fredrick Gifford studied music in Chicago, receiving his doctoral degree in composition from Northwestern University in 2000.  Additional studies have been with Harrison Birtwistle, in residency at The Lake Placid Place for the Arts, as well as master classes with Bent Sørensen in New York and Luca Francesconi in Québec. Gifford has taught composition on the faculties of the DePaul University School of Music and Northwestern University School of Music in the United States as well as the Escola Superior da Música e das Artes do Espectáculo, in Porto, Portugal.

Since 2001, Gifford has also been involved in the field of classical recordings.  As a performer he has recorded with the Amnon Wolman Ensemble on Centaur Records. In collaboration with the recording and publishing company Numérica Multimédia, he has been the musical producer for a number of world-premiere recordings of Portuguese music ranging from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, from anonymous composers from the Cancioneiro de Elvas to Emmanuel Nunes.

As a composer, the music of Fredrick Gifford has been heard in recital in Europe and North America by ensembles including the Kairos Quartett, Berlin, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Aspen Contemporary Music Ensemble, the silent/listen players (a Chicago-based ensemble co-founded by Gifford in 1996), and soloists including Toni Arnold, soprano, and Jesse Langen, guitar.  His music been heard at festivals such as the Bludenzer Tage Zeitgemässiger Musik, Austria, and the Festival Internacional de Música Contemporánea, Mexico. Commissions, grants and assistance for performances have come from the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities, the Juilliard School, the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Harris Fund, the Wyatt Fund, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Releases Produced by Fredrick Gifford:
NUM 1153 – Emmanuel Nunes – Remix Ensemble
NUM 1157 – Porto Romântico, Mazurcas e Romanzas – Sofia Lourenço, piano
NUM 1164 – Revisitar os Mitos – Esart Ensemble
NUM 1165 – Música para D. João VI e D. Carlota – Mário Trilha, cravo – Isabel Alcobia, soprano
NUM 1166 – Six Portraits of pain – António Pinho Vargas
NUM 1168 – João Victor Costa, Obras para piano – Robert Andres e Honor O’Hea, piano
NUM 1177 – Geografia da Música II – Orquestra Raízes Ibéricas – Constantin Sandu, piano
NUM 1181 – Música Contemporânea Portuguesa para piano – João Luís Rosa, piano
NUM 1182 – Música Portuguesa para um Quarteto – Quarteto Lopes-Graça
NUM 1183 – Música para a Princesa Santa Joana de Aveiro – Ensemble Joanna Música
NUM 1186 – Festival Internacional de Música da Póvoa de Varzim 08
NUM 1192 – Sinfonia Nº3 e Sinfonia Nº 4 – António Victorino D’Almeida
NUM 1195 – Schumann – Nuno Pinto, clarinete e Elsa Silva, piano

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