Allen Shearer

Allen Raymond Shearer (born October 5, 1943 in Seattle, Washington) is an American composer and baritone.

Not to be confused with Alan Shearer.

Life

Shearer’s early musical experiences were as a singer; the majority of his works are for the voice or voices, with a later emphasis on opera. With his first wife, pianist Barbara Shearer (1936–2005), Shearer's performances included art songs, some of which were his own. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1972, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria where he received diplomas in concert singing and opera. He taught voice in Special Programs at the University of California at Berkeley.[1] Among his composition teachers were Fred Lerdahl, Seymour Shifrin, Andrew Imbrie and Max Deutsch, with whom he studied in Paris. He has received many awards in music, including the Rome Prize Fellowship, the Aaron Copland Award, the Sylvia Goldstein Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship, residencies at the MacDowell Colony, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Musical style

When asked about his musical style in the discussion preceding the 2009 premiere of his opera The Dawn Makers, Shearer answered that it varies according to the demands of the medium. Critics also describe it variously. The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music observes that Shearer’s music, "though it recalls postwar serialism in its rhythms and textures, relies on traditional counterpoint and on tonal centers."[2] Its lyric quality is frequently cited: Jeff Rosenfeld, reviewing Shearer’s Outbound Passenger, found the music "tuneful and harmonious;"[3] and of Shearer’s cantata King Midas, critic Robert Commanday wrote, ‘The singing lines are fluid and supple, animated, alive; the harmony and scoring for a quintet of instruments and percussion battery (two players), rich but delicately so."[4] In the British periodical Opera, Allan Ulrich wrote that the score of Shearer’s chamber opera The Dawn Makers has "genuine personality. The hour-long opera abounds in extended ariosos and bravura outbursts and unfurls in a conservative idiom, spiced with dissonances which neatly evade the neo-Romantic pitfalls that prevail in American opera circles."[5] Of the same work, Thomas Busse wrote in San Francisco Classical Voice, "The music’s greatest strength was its singability, attributable to the composer’s being a vocalist himself. I would describe Shearer’s eclectic style as more declamatory than lyrical."[6] Of Shearer's opera Middlemarch in Spring[7] Janos Gereben wrote in the San Francisco Examiner, "Shearer's music is pleasantly dissonant, with a sound that sticks in the ears and memory. It's ambiguous music, seemingly wondering [sic] between keys, but landing securely each time."[8]

Recent works

Opera

Instrumental works
  • Early Start (2019) for flute, cello and piano
  • Thinking Thoughts (2019) for violin and piano
  • Sea Critter (2016) for piano solo
  • Road Piece (2015) for brass trio and percussion
  • Intermezzo (2014) for clarinet solo
  • Footloose (2013) for flute, violin and guitar
  • Roundelay (2011) for oboe, clarinet and bassoon
  • Riff on a Verse (2011) for violin and percussion
  • Terrains (2010) for piano and string trio
  • Forthrights and Meanders (2009) for violin, cello and piano
  • Soliloquy (2009) for viola solo
  • Bagatelles (2006) for flute and clarinet
  • Memory Beams (2005) for violin and guitar

Choral works
  • Romanç de matinet (2012) for mixed chorus SATB
  • Listen. Put on Morning (2011) for mixed chorus SSATB
  • The Holy Innocents (2011) for mixed chorus SSAATTBB
  • Hymn to Gaia (2010) for mixed chorus SATB and chamber ensemble
  • Orpheus in the Underworld (2010) for men’s chorus TTBB
  • Songs of the Moment (2007) for women’s chorus SSAA

Vocal works
  • The River-Merchant’s Wife (2018) for soprano, flute, viola and piano
  • Psalm, Lament and Aubade (2018) for soprano, clarinet and piano
  • November Gold (2017) for medium voice and piano
  • Stories Wind Told to Grass (2015) for mezzo soprano, flute, cello and piano
  • The Leaves of Another Year (2014) for baritone, clarinet and guitar
  • Night Songs II (2009) for mezzo soprano, viola and piano
  • Learning the Elements (2007) for mezzo soprano, clarinet, cello and piano
  • Night Songs (2005) for medium voice, clarinet/bass clarinet, viola and harp
  • How Poems Are Made (2006) for soprano and piano
  • Secrets (2003) for mezzo soprano, flute, cello and piano

Discography
  • Five Poems of Wallace Stevens, "Dimensions," CRS 8944
  • Nude Descending a Staircase, "I Have Had Singing", Chanticleer Records CR 8810
  • Mushrooms, "With a Poet’s Eye", Chanticleer Records CR 8804
  • The Illusion of Eternity, "The Anniversary Album 1978-1988," Chanticleer Records CR 8804
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References
  1. "University of California at Berkeley, profile". Archived from the original on 2012-08-11. Retrieved 2013-08-07.
  2. Don, Randel (1996). Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. pp. 831. ISBN 0674372999.
  3. Rosenfeld, Jeff. "Playing with Expectations". San Francisco Classical Voice. Archived from the original on 2013-12-15. Retrieved Oct 19, 2004.
  4. Commanday, Robert (April 25, 1991). "Baritone Strikes Gold for Himself". San Francisco Chronicle.
  5. Ulrich, Allan (July 2009). Opera: 845.CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  6. Busse, Thomas. "Here Comes the Dawn". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved 10 February 2009.
  7. Kosman, Joshua, "Opera Review: 'Middlemarch in Spring' is a Sunny Romp,", San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2015
  8. Gereben, Janos, "Middlemarch--literature's gift to opera," San Francisco Examiner, March 20, 2015
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