Celebration of the Music of Sheila Silver

Sheila Silver is an important and vital voice in American music today. She has written in a wide range of mediums: from solo instrumental works to large orchestral works; from opera to feature film scores. Her musical language is a unique synthesis of the tonal and atonal worlds, coupled with a rhythmic complexity which is both masterful and compelling. Again and again, audiences and critics praise her music as powerful and emotionally charged, accessible, and masterfully conceived. "Only a few composers in any generation enliven the art form with their musical language and herald new directions in music. Sheila Silver is such a visionary." (Wetterauer Zeitung, Germany, 2004)

Sheila Silver's compositions have been commissioned and performed by numerous orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists throughout the United States and Europe including: the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the RAI Orchestra of Rome, the American Composers Orchestra, the Lithuanian State Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Stockton Symphony, the Chicago String Ensemble, the Richmond Symphony, the Illinois Symphony, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Hartford Chamber Orchestra, Alexander Paley, Dawn Upshaw, Gilbert Kalish, Timothy Eddy, the Guild Trio, Heidi Lehwalder and the Muir Quartet, the Ying Quartet, and Tapestry Vocal Ensemble.

This concert features selected works from composer Sheila Silver's musical output over the past 25 years, including arias, songs, instrumental chamber and multi-media works.  The recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize, the Prix de Paris, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Sackler Prize in Music Composition for Opera, Silver's music is performed internationally.  This concert is produced as a tribute to Ms. Silver by the Department of Music at Stony Brook University, where she has served as Professor of Music since 1979.