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Artist
Michael Hersch
12+ albums
contemporary classicalClassicalcomposerpianoAvant-Garde
about
Michael Nathaniel Hersch (born June 25, 1971) is an American composer and pianist. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Reston, Virginia, Hersch was introduced to classical music at the age of 18 by his younger brother Jamie, who showed him a videotape of Georg Solti conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This "shook me," Hersch has written. "It scrambled everything. That's when I knew that I was to be a composer... My whole life started over at that moment." He almost immediately began studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Hersch has stated that "with Morris Moshe Cotel - the teacher I spent the most time with during my studies at the Peabody Conservatory - lessons consisted only of week after week coming into the teacher's studio, playing and singing through the latest work at the piano and his saying nothing more than, 'Okay. Fine. See you next week.' He believed that a composer confronting his or herself in this manner would force the composer to look in the mirror seeing, along with the good, all the flaws."[1] Hersch moved on to the Moscow Conservatory, where he worked with Albert Leman and Roman Ledenev, and received a Certificate in Composition in 1995. He also worked with John Corigliano, John Harbison and George Rochberg at a program for young composers in 1995. Hersch then returned to Peabody for graduate studies. His first success came when Marin Alsop selected Elegy for Strings as winner of the American Composers Prize, and conducted it
top songs
1
Images From a Closed Ward: I. β
1082A Breath Upwards: VI. β
1013Variations on a Theme of Hugo Wolf: I. β
754Violin Concerto: II. β
735Variations on a Theme of Hugo Wolf: III. β
686Violin Concerto: I. β
647Variations on a Theme of Hugo Wolf: IV. β
648Variations on a Theme of Hugo Wolf: V. β
639Variations on a Theme of Hugo Wolf: VI. β
6310Images From a Closed Ward: II. β
59albums
A Breath Upwards
Michael Hersch: End Stages & Violin Concerto
HERSCH: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 / Fracta / Arrache
Stravinsky & Schubert
Michael Hersch: Images from a Closed Ward
Michael Hersch: Carrion-Miles to Purgatory
Hersch: The Vanishing Pavilions
Hersch: Images From a Closed Ward
Hersch: the wreckage of flowers
Michael Hersch: The Script of Storms
Hersch: The Vanishing Pavilions Suite
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Michael Hersch: Poppaea (Live)