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Virgil Moorefield

About this Artist

VIRGIL MOOREFIELD (drummer) is also a composer and author. Moorefield's CD, The Temperature in Hell is Over 3,000 Degrees, is available on Tzadik Records. His previous CD Distractions On the Way To the King's Party (Cuneiform) received international critical acclaim. Things You Must Do To Get To Heaven, a new ensemble project, was recently recorded in New York. The Virgil Moorefield Ensemble has performed in Europe and the U.S., including the Inventing America Festival at London's Barbican Centre, the Patronaat Festival in Haarlem, Holland, and the Bang on a Can marathon at Lincoln Center. A collaborative CD, The Emily XYZ Songbook, appeared on Rattapallax in 2005; a collaborative intermedia work, Chicago Union Station, was presented at the International Computer Music Conference in Miami in 2004. Moorefield was recently awarded Rockefeller Foundation and MacDowell composition residencies. He has also received grants from Commissioning Music USA, the Illinois Arts Council, and the NEA. Moorefield was commissioned by the Bang On A Can All-Stars to compose Arrival of the Crows; an orchestral work, Blanqui (Fragments for Orchestra) was premiered by the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble in Brooklyn.

His book, The Producer As Composer, was published by MIT Press in December 2005. As a drummer, Moorefield has worked with numerous rock and avantgarde artists, including Swans, Bill Laswell, Elliott Sharp, and Damage. Moorefield received a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University. He is currently Associate Professor of Music at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.