Profile

Born in New York City in 1962, Stephen Blumberg received his Ph.D. in composition from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.A. and B.A. degrees from the University of California, San Diego. He has studied with Richard Felciano and Andrew Imbrie at U.C. Berkeley, and Bernard Rands, Will Odgon, Joji Yuasa, Pauline Oliveros and Roger Reynolds at U.C. San Diego. In France from 1991 to 1993 as the recipient of the U.C. Berkeley Music Department's George Ladd Prix de Paris Fellowship, he studied privately with Ivo Malec, Participated in a three-week workshop, "La Session de Composition," led by Brian Ferneyhough and Luis de Pablo at l'Abbey de Royaumont, and worked at Les Ateliers UPIC, the computer music center founded by Iannis Xenakis.

In April 1994 harpsichordist Jory Vinikour premiered Blumberg's Gyre on a recital of contemporary harpsichord music, during a week-long international symposium on the contemporary harpsichord, "Het Clavicembel," in Amsterdam. Vinikour, winner of two first prizes at international competitions-in Warsaw, 1993, and at the Prague Spring Festival, 1994, performed Blumberg's Gyre again on a tour of eight concerts in France and the United States between October 1996 and March 1997, including the American premiere at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

In addition to the afore-mentioned George Ladd Prize, Blumberg has won numerous awards, including two Nicola De Lorenzo Prizes for Composition (1990 and 1994) and a BMI Student Composer Award in 1987. Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle described Blumberg's Sextant as "a deftly shaped score of streamlined beauty" in a review of a performance by the new music ensemble Earplay at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in February 1996. Blumberg has taught as a graduate student instructor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently teaching music theory and composition at California State University, Sacramento, where he was appointed Artist in Residence for the 1997-98 academic year.