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PETER WARE (May 4, 1951) like
Charles Ives has fashioned a melodic and harmonic vocabulary both
distinctive and attractive. Frequently drawing titles from North American
landscapes, Ware seeks to climb inside his sources creating an organic
rather than narrative musical style. Expressionistic with driving rhythm and
bold harmonic progressions, his music evolves through long-breathed
polymodal melodies, spun out almost endlessly in a free-flowing contrapuntal
texture. Ware's musical structures develop naturally from modal motivic
cells that seem to grow and mutate in an evolutionary sense. Fascinating in
its defiance of analysis, the music emerges from a primitive sense and
communicates directly with the listener on a purely spiritual level. For
this reason, its meaning can be interpreted and understood emotionally, but
the message is encoded outside the realm of language.
Ware’s early musical training was in the church choir and under the piano
tutelage of Florence Robertson in Beethoven's lineage. He studied
composition at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of
Cincinnati and Yale University. His principal teachers include Krzysztof
Penderecki, Scott Huston, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and Toru Takemitsu.
While many composers claim inspiration from the works and spirit of
Beethoven, Ware's orchestra music is large in gesture with the heroic always
surfacing and a sense of undeniable majesty. It communicates the universal
awe, a speechlessness that can only be captured in the language of tone. In
the end, the process is clearly recognizable as an extremely personal
testimonial: the individual artist struggling for context in the world, and
through the workings out of their art, championing and empowering themselves
with spirit transcending.
Ware attracts numerous commissions with grants from the Canada Council, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Ohio Arts
Council. He has attracted commissions and performances from ensembles such
as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Saskatoon Symphony’s
Composer-of-the-Season, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Regina Symphony,
Orchestra London Canada, Virginia Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic,
Mississauga Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Chamber
Ensemble/Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Queen's Chamber
Orchestra, National Chamber Orchestra, and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He
has received composition prizes from the Minnesota Composers Forum, St.
Louis New Music Circle, University of Cincinnati, Pi Kappa Lambda Music
Honor Society, Virginia Commonwealth University and Yale University. In
1993-94, Ware was Composer-of-the-Season for the Saskatoon Symphony. His
music is available on the following CDs: The
Many Moods of the Guitar (GXD 5732) Impossible
Dream (GXD 5733), Forest Scenes
(GXD 5734), Americas
(GXD 5736), and Angelica
(5735).
E-mail Peter: Ware@Acoma-Co.com |
