Max Duykers

Max Giteck Duykers is a composer whose work is dedicated to unusual beauty. His music has been performed throughout the United States, in Italy, England, and Romania. He was recently commissioned by the Jerome Foundation and Western Michigan University to create a chamber opera for his father, tenor John Duykers, electro-acoustic percussionist Joel Davel, and pierrot sextet, called The Apricots of Andujar. The piece is being developed with acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Philip Gotanda, and will be co-presented by the Astoria Music Festival in Astoria, OR. The Avian Orchestra also recently commissioned Arborescence for accordion and pierrot sextet, to be premiered in NYC and on an East Coast tour in the Fall of 2011. His numerous other commissions and premieres include The Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, the Oakland Youth Orchestra, The Seattle Chamber Players, Anti-Social Music, Trio Tara, The Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, HERE Arts Center, PS122, La Mama ETC, and the Stony Brook Department of Theatre Arts.

Duykers’ Setti Momenti was commissioned by the Le Ville Matte music residency in Sardinia, Italy, where he spent the summer of 2010. The piece was premiered and recorded for an upcoming release. His music was also featured at three recent music festivals: Music08 at the University of Cincinnati, soundSCAPE at the Vittadini School of Music in Pavia, Italy, and the Seattle Chamber Players’ Icebreaker IV, curated by The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross. His sextet Twilight For Adored and Breathless Moments was called “full of surprises” by The Seattle Weekly, and a “gem…beautiful…an absolute pleasure to hear” by artdish.com. Duykers’ Glass Blue Cleft was recently recorded by the Escher String Quartet and released on Bridge Records in April 2010 (Bridge 9318). Of the piece, Three Village Patch writes “[Glass Blue Cleft] is a piece for lovers of the string quartet, those amazed by how fiery and how dulcet these four-stringed instruments can range in expression.” It has also just been chosen as the winner of the New York Composers Circle Composers Competition, and will receive a performance at Symphony Space in the summer of 2012.

Duykers has also been commissioned to compose music for over 35 theatrical, dance, film, and multimedia projects in the New York City area. With the theatre group Prototype he was an artist-in-residence at HERE Arts Center in 2002-2004, and in 2000-2001 he worked for Philip Glass’ The Looking Glass Studios and Dunvagen Music Publishers, where he did studio recording, Pro-Tools post-production, music sequencing, music copying and music editing for the Philip Glass Ensemble, film scoring projects, and operatic works. He holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory where he studied composition with Randy Coleman, and he is currently a PhD candidate at Stony Brook University where he studies with Sheila Silver. At Stony Brook he has also taught music theory, musicianship and private composition to music majors. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Rebecca and son Quinlan.

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