Erica Muhl

Composer and conductor Erica Muhl (b. October 26, 1961) is Associate Dean and Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles.

Early years

Erica Muhl grew up in Los Angeles, where her father Edward Muhl was the head of Universal Pictures—noted not only for his long creative partnership with Douglas Sirk, but also for his historic feud with Orson Welles—and her mother, Barbara, an author and opera singer. She trained both as a composer and conductor, with much completed in Europe. At sixteen she was invited for private composition study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.

After returning to California to earn her B.M., she traveled again to Europe for graduate studies at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, studying with the Italian composer Franco Donatoni. In 1991, she completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Southern California.

In Los Angeles, she studied conducting privately with the émigré Austrian conductor Fritz Zweig (1893–1984). For the Italian opera repertoire, she studied in Rome with Walter Cataldi-Tassoni, a student of Mascagni.

Career

Erica Muhl's “Elegy for Strings, for the Victims of the Shoah,” premiered in Berlin November 8, 2010, having been commissioned by the Jüdische Kammerphilharmonie Dresden to commemorate Kristallnacht. The MDR (Middle German Radio) broadcast the concert, and it will be released on CD. The "Elegy" received its French and Polish premieres in 2012; the work was recorded for broadcast by Radio France.

Another commission, the ebullient tone picture for large orchestra, “Burn the Box,” also premiered in 2010, at a private gala in celebration of the inauguration of USC President C. L. Max Nikias. Further recent premieres have included the concert overture, "Smoke and Mirrors," for large orchestra, conducted in Los Angeles by the Memphis Symphony's music director, Mei-Ann Chen; and two new chamber works. 2009 saw the Dresden and Berlin premieres of her "Trucco for String Orchestra.” Other premieres featured a major work for String Quartet inspired by Beethoven's Op. 132, called "Prism 132" played (and commissioned) by San Francisco's Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. She conducted the premiere of her lyrical nocturne for orchestra "The Sea and All its Fullness" in 2006. In 2005, the premiere of her chamber work, "...to a Thin Edge" (commissioned and performed by the Orchestra of St. Lukes in New York City) evoked a strongly positive response from audience and critics. Other recent appearances include the premiere of her symphonic work, "Fleet," which she conducted at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's "Sounds About Town" series.

The color and expression in her music range from the deeply contrapuntal "Elegy for Strings," to the shock and defiance of "Consolation" (for chamber orchestra) to the enigmatic humor and yearning of "Truccorchestra", the last premiered by the late Sergiu Comissiona. Awards have been granted to her by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Whitaker Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Charles Ives Center for American Music and Opera America.

Muhl has served as Assistant Conductor for Los Angeles Opera Theater, for Seattle Opera's regular season, and the Seattle Pacific Northwest Wagner Festival’s complete "Der Ring des Nibelungen." She is widely traveled, speaks French and Italian, and is an avid equestrienne. She is married, and resides in Los Angeles with her son and husband.

Recordings

• Range of Light: Selected Chamber Works by Erica Muhl Cleveland Chamber Symphony conducted by Erica Muhl and Erik Forrester Albany TROY 667 08G092 (2004)

References

• What's Next: The LA Composers Project (May 26-28, 2010), biography of Muhl, accessed 4 February 2010

External links

• Composer's own website, accessed 4 February 2010
• Martin Perlich radio interview, accessed 7 March, 2012