Department of Music Faculty
Kenneth Fuchs, DMAProfessor of Music (Composition)(860) 486-3728
Richard Todd will join the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Edward Cumming in the première performance of Canticle to the Sun on April 29 and 30, 2008, at 8 p.m., at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, in Hartford, Connecticut. Connecticut's professional choir CONCORA in 2007 released a recording that includes Kenneth Fuchs's "Immigrants Still," after a poem by Richard Wilbur, for full chorus of mixed a capella voices. In August 2005, Naxos released on the American Classics label Kenneth Fuchs: An American Place, Eventide, Out of the Dark. The disc features three orchestral works recorded by the LSO, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, with soloist Thomas Stacy, English hornist of the New York Philharmonic. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honored the disc with two 2006 Grammy Award nominations, including Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra for Stacy's performance of the English horn concerto Eventide and Classical Producer of the Year for Michael Fine. Albany Records, in October 2001, released the highly successful compact disc recording Kenneth Fuchs: String Quartets 2, 3, 4 performed by the American String Quartet. Following the release of this disc, a review in the July 2002 edition of the American Record Guide stated quite simply, "String quartet recordings don't get much better than this." Kenneth Fuchs has received numerous awards and honors for his compositions, including an Individual Artist Grant Award in 2007 from the Greater Hartford Arts Council. He also has been resident at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico. He has written for orchestra, band, chorus, jazz ensemble, and various chamber ensembles. With Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson, Fuchs created three chamber musicals, The Great Nebula in Orion, A Betrothal, and Brontosaurus, which were presented by Circle Repertory Company in New York City. His music is performed in the United States, Europe and Japan, and it has been commissioned and recorded by the American String Quartet, New York Philharmonic Ensembles, and the United States Air Force Heritage of America Band and Band of Liberty. Kenneth Fuchs received his bachelor of music degree in composition from the University of Miami (cum laude) and his master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees in composition from the Juilliard School. Fuchs's composition teachers include Milton Babbitt, David Del Tredici, David Diamond, Vincent Persichetti, and Alfred Reed. His music is published by Edward B. Marks Music Company, Theodore Presser Company, and Yelton Rhodes Music and has been recorded by Albany, Cala, and Naxos Records. Hear the Music of Kenneth Fuchs |
On November 21 and 22, 2006, the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), conducted by JoAnn Falletta, recorded five works by Kenneth Fuchs. The recording, which the international record company Naxos released in January 2008, features two orchestral works and three quintets. United Artists (for Orchestra) is a short piece designed to display the virtuoso ensemble playing of the LSO. Canticle to the Sun (Concerto for French Horn) was composed especially for Timothy Jones, principal horn of the LSO.