Clarice Assad
In 2014 Clarice serves as Albany Orchestra's Composer-Educator partner, curating a major educational project with a local school during her residency, and will join the orchestra for a performance of her Concerto for Scat-Singer, Piano and Orchestra in May 2014. In February 2014, a new work for orchestra (SARAVÁ) will be recorded by the Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo under the leadership of Marin Alsop. The work was commissioned by Fundação OSESP and will also be the season opener for the orchestra's Brazilian tour.
Also in 2014, Assad collaborates in a number of projects, including a 40 minute concert of arranged music for the Century Chamber Orchestra and Chanticleer. Recent commissions include a new concerto for guitar and orchestra (by the Harris Foundation); a new piece for guitar orchestra by the York Guitar Society) and a piano work for speaking pianist, which will be premiered by Inna Faliks in March. Assad is currently a resident artist in the Composer Librettist Development Program at American Lyric Theater, working towards a one act opera which will be premiered in NYC during the month of July.
Clarice’s music have been published in France (Editions Lemoine), Germany (Trekel), Criadores do Brasil (Brazil) and in the United States (Virtual Artists Collective Publishing), and have been performed in Europe, South America, the United States and Japan.
Ms. Assad’s latest solo recording for the Adventure Music label is HOME, an album of original works and interpretations of Brazilian songs. AllMusic. com praised, “Everything here lives up to Assad’s reputation, and even furthers it; she’s a talent quite beyond compare.” Her new album IMAGINARIUM featuring new works and over 40 musicians, will be released early this year. Personnel includes violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, mandolinist Mike Marshall, Brazilian singer Luciana Souza, Argentinian singer/songwriter Sofia Rei, vocalist Arooj Aftab, wind player Carlos Malta, among other stellar musicians.
Ms. Assad is the recipient of such awards as the Aaron Copland Award, several ASCAP awards, Meet The Composer's Van Lier Fellowship, the Franklin Honor Society, as well as a nomination from the Latin Grammy Foundation for best contemporary composition. She has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Fundação OSESP, the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, Concordia Chamber Players , the Albany Symphony, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, PRO MUSICA Chamber Orchestra, the BRAVO! Music Festival and the New Century Chamber Orchestra, to name a few. She is the principal staff arranger for the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and the responsible for most of the orchestra’s musical arrangements, such as the highly praised chamber orchestra version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Clarice has also written for theater and ballet. Works include Ópera das Pedras, written and directed by visual artist Denise Milan and co-directed by Mabou Mine's co-founder and director Lee Breuer; an original soundtrack for the play A Lição de Anatomia by Argentinian playwright Carlos Mathus, the ballet Steps to Grace, by choreographer Lou Fancher and Essentials of Flor by Kristi Spessard. Assad's Impressions, a suite for chamber orchestra, has been choreographed in the United States & Brazil. She has attended numerous artists residenciesm including the Aaron Copland house, The Harrison house, the MacDowell Colony and Yadoo.
As a performer, Assad has received acclaim for her performances of both original compositions and her own arrangements of popular Brazilian songs and jazz standards. She has performed at venues including the Caramoor International Jazz Festival, Zankell hall and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Concertgebow in Amsterdam, San Francisco Jazz, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Chicago, Le Casino de Paris in Paris, France and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Belgium. As a vocalist, Ms. Assad sings in Portuguese, French, Italian and English, but thrives in exploring the voice as an instrument, creating a vast array of innovative techniques. “When she scats, she sings with intonation as precise as any digital device, improvising cascading scales that take on sparkling lives of their own.” (Tucson Citizen).
A native of Rio de Janeiro, Clarice Assad was born into one of Brazil’s most famous musical families (she is the daughter of Sergio Assad, one of today’s preeminent guitarists and composers), and has performed professionally since the age of seven. Formal piano studies began with Sheila Zagury in Brazil; she then studied with Natalie Fortin in Paris and had additional instruction in Jazz and Brazilian piano under the tutelage of Leandro Braga. Clarice continued her classical piano studies in the United States with Ed Bedner (Berklee School of Music) and then Bruce Berr at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Composition mentors are Ilya Levinson, Stacy Garrop, David Rakowski, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers and Claude Baker. Clarice studied voice with composer and singer Susan Botti and Judy Blazer.
Miss Assad holds a Bachelor of Music from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts, Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, and a Masters of Music in Composition from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
www.clariceassad.com
Also in 2014, Assad collaborates in a number of projects, including a 40 minute concert of arranged music for the Century Chamber Orchestra and Chanticleer. Recent commissions include a new concerto for guitar and orchestra (by the Harris Foundation); a new piece for guitar orchestra by the York Guitar Society) and a piano work for speaking pianist, which will be premiered by Inna Faliks in March. Assad is currently a resident artist in the Composer Librettist Development Program at American Lyric Theater, working towards a one act opera which will be premiered in NYC during the month of July.
Clarice’s music have been published in France (Editions Lemoine), Germany (Trekel), Criadores do Brasil (Brazil) and in the United States (Virtual Artists Collective Publishing), and have been performed in Europe, South America, the United States and Japan.
Ms. Assad’s latest solo recording for the Adventure Music label is HOME, an album of original works and interpretations of Brazilian songs. AllMusic. com praised, “Everything here lives up to Assad’s reputation, and even furthers it; she’s a talent quite beyond compare.” Her new album IMAGINARIUM featuring new works and over 40 musicians, will be released early this year. Personnel includes violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, mandolinist Mike Marshall, Brazilian singer Luciana Souza, Argentinian singer/songwriter Sofia Rei, vocalist Arooj Aftab, wind player Carlos Malta, among other stellar musicians.
Ms. Assad is the recipient of such awards as the Aaron Copland Award, several ASCAP awards, Meet The Composer's Van Lier Fellowship, the Franklin Honor Society, as well as a nomination from the Latin Grammy Foundation for best contemporary composition. She has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Fundação OSESP, the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, Concordia Chamber Players , the Albany Symphony, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, PRO MUSICA Chamber Orchestra, the BRAVO! Music Festival and the New Century Chamber Orchestra, to name a few. She is the principal staff arranger for the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and the responsible for most of the orchestra’s musical arrangements, such as the highly praised chamber orchestra version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Clarice has also written for theater and ballet. Works include Ópera das Pedras, written and directed by visual artist Denise Milan and co-directed by Mabou Mine's co-founder and director Lee Breuer; an original soundtrack for the play A Lição de Anatomia by Argentinian playwright Carlos Mathus, the ballet Steps to Grace, by choreographer Lou Fancher and Essentials of Flor by Kristi Spessard. Assad's Impressions, a suite for chamber orchestra, has been choreographed in the United States & Brazil. She has attended numerous artists residenciesm including the Aaron Copland house, The Harrison house, the MacDowell Colony and Yadoo.
As a performer, Assad has received acclaim for her performances of both original compositions and her own arrangements of popular Brazilian songs and jazz standards. She has performed at venues including the Caramoor International Jazz Festival, Zankell hall and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Concertgebow in Amsterdam, San Francisco Jazz, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Chicago, Le Casino de Paris in Paris, France and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Belgium. As a vocalist, Ms. Assad sings in Portuguese, French, Italian and English, but thrives in exploring the voice as an instrument, creating a vast array of innovative techniques. “When she scats, she sings with intonation as precise as any digital device, improvising cascading scales that take on sparkling lives of their own.” (Tucson Citizen).
A native of Rio de Janeiro, Clarice Assad was born into one of Brazil’s most famous musical families (she is the daughter of Sergio Assad, one of today’s preeminent guitarists and composers), and has performed professionally since the age of seven. Formal piano studies began with Sheila Zagury in Brazil; she then studied with Natalie Fortin in Paris and had additional instruction in Jazz and Brazilian piano under the tutelage of Leandro Braga. Clarice continued her classical piano studies in the United States with Ed Bedner (Berklee School of Music) and then Bruce Berr at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Composition mentors are Ilya Levinson, Stacy Garrop, David Rakowski, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers and Claude Baker. Clarice studied voice with composer and singer Susan Botti and Judy Blazer.
Miss Assad holds a Bachelor of Music from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts, Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, and a Masters of Music in Composition from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
www.clariceassad.com