Born: 1982, Chicago

 “I’m really into music that successfully combines different musical traditions into something original and confounding.”

Ted Hearne attended the Manhattan School of Music and the Yale School of Music, and his teachers and mentors have included Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman, David Lang, Nils Vigeland, and Julia Wolfe. His music has been performed or commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Calder Quartet, The Knights, New York City Opera, the Albany Symphony, and eighth blackbird; in the summer he will collaborate with hip-hop legend Erykah Badu on a new work for her to perform with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of the Arts and his oratorio Katrina Ballads won the 2009 Gaudeamus International Composers Award; its recording was named one of the best classical albums of 2010 by the Washington Post. A composer of polyglot sensibilities, Hearne is as comfortable in operatic and orchestral works as he is in rock and choral music.

Further listening:

Katrina Ballads (oratorio, 2009)
(New Amsterdam/Naxos)

Privilege (choral, 2009)
Volti, Robert Geary
(Tzadik Records)