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Biography
Deborah Fischer Teason was born and raised in the Hudson River Valley and has studied and performed music since her early childhood. She began composing at the age of fourteen, received her degree in music theory and composition from Arizona State University where she premiered 25 works in five years, and studied composition privately with John Corigliano, Thea Musgrave and Martin Bresnick.
Ms. Teason has composed extensively for chamber ensemble, chorus and orchestra. Over the past forty years her commissions have included works for Opera Omaha, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Wall Street Chamber Players, the New Haven Chorale and numerous soloists.
Many of Ms. Teason's projects have involved collaborations with professional, amateur and student musicians, often from widely diverse backgrounds. She worked with the Bridgeport Public Schools and the Greater Bridgeport Symphony to create four choral works over eight years that were written with inner city school students and performed by the symphony on subscription concerts. In 1999 she received a Continental Harmony commission from the American Composers Forum to create music for a small farming town in Nebraska. The completed work, Heartland, brought together a community choir, button accordion players, a Czech brass band, a children's choir and a solo violinist, and was chosen to represent the Continental Harmony Project at the 2000 meeting of the National Council of the Arts in Washington DC. In 2003, Opera Omaha premiered Bloodlines, an opera which Ms. Teason wrote in collaboration with high school students from South Omaha and which brought together on stage national level singers, community professionals and high school singers.
A chance introduction to playing in a steelband in the early 1990s has grown into a serious commitment to teaching and expanding the repertoire of the steel pan. Ms. Teason currently directs six steelband programs in Connecticut, including the highly regarded St. Luke's Steel Band, recipient of the 2003 Greater New Haven Arts Council Artist Award. In 2002 her concerto for steelband and orchestra, Trinity, was commissioned and premiered by the Waterbury Symphony. Renowned tenor pan soloist Liam Teague and the Vermeer Quartet premiered Cadences for steel pan and string quartet in Chicago in December 2006. Recent works include Essakane for three steel pans, piano, bass and drums, which was premiered as part of Yale's Ellington Concert Series in November 2010; and Spinks for alto saxophone, double seconds, piano, bass and drums, which was premiered in 2014.a
Productions
Click company name to view productions details.
| COMPANY | TITLE | DATES | Opera Omaha | Bloodlines | 5/1/2003 - 5/3/2003 |
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Artist Information
All information is derived from OPERA America's Season Schedule of Performances and titles databases which date back to 1991. OPERA America is constantly updating this data. If you feel that a work or an artist has been omitted or that information is incorrect, please use the linked forms below. Title Information Form Artist Information Form
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