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Biography
Clark Suprynowicz is a San Francisco Bay Area composer. Clark is also the founder and A.D. of Future Fires, a cultural platform for the digital arts. Recent performances of Clark's work include "Red States, Blue States" (which opened the 2016-17 Oakland-East Bay Symphony season), and performances of The Moshi Project, a collaboration with Mikey Disko, DIBIA$E, Marpi, and Can Buyukberber. The Moshi Project was performed three times in 2017: as part of the "Luminary" event series at The Midway (San Francisco), and also in Orlando, Florida at the Microsoft "Envision" event in September, 2017, immediately after Hurricane Maria.
Following residencies with the Berkeley Symphony and the Berkeley Opera, Clark had three works premiered in recent years: The opera Caliban Dreams (with writer / performer Amanda Moody, featuring tenor John Duykers) in a Berkeley Opera production; Tectonic, a commission from the Mill Valley Philharmonic, featuring readings by poet Jane Hirshfield, and Machine, a new opera with writer / director Mark Streshinsky, which premiered at the Crucible, in Oakland, in January 2012.
Clark has written extensively for the stage. The Berkeley Opera presented the world premiere of an opera by Mr. Suprynowicz in April of 2006: Chrysalis, written with
librettist John O'Keefe. The San Francisco Classical Voice, wrote: "Chrysalis is an important event, signaling the arrival of a new, fresh, authentic voice." And Joshua Kosman said, in his San Francisco Chronicle review, "When Suprynowicz goes all out with lyrical, melodic writing, the effect is ravishing. The final duet for Ellen and Nelle - a sinuous weave of arching phrases and piquant dissonances - is all all the more astounding for being so morally unsettling."
Mr. Suprynowicz spent many years in the trenches as a jazz musician before decamping to compose full-time. He has worked as a bassist with John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Art Lande, Max Roach, and Tom Waits.
Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area from the East Coast in 1982,Suprynowicz founded the Bay Area Jazz Composers Orchestra with composer Paul Nash and wrote numerous scores for that ensemble. The Bay Area Jazz Composers Orchestra met with critical acclaim and performed widely, including an appearance in the 1987 San Francisco Jazz Festival.
Suprynowicz has written theme music and incidental music for National Public Radio. He has composed songs and chamber music, as well as jazz works. A quintet for percussion, winds and strings, commissioned by the American Composers Forum, premiered in 2003, one of a series of works commissioned by ACF. But his output as a composer for the last decade has focused on work for the stage. Suprynowicz is a founding member of the New Music Theatre Project, a forum for new work in the singing theatre at Z Space Studios in San Francisco. His opera Ariadne, with librettist Ken Prestininzi, was developed at Z Space, and was premiered in 1998 by City Summer Opera at the Diego Rivera Theater, City College, San Francisco. Kevin Ottem reviewed Ariadne in 20th Century Music:
"The score is not just a collection of songs woven into a literate script, but a rich punch of sound, sometimes lyric and explicit, sometimes wordless and mysterious. At its best, Suprynowicz extends the idea of a traditional musical score into the realm of a soundscape."
Joshua Kosman, reviewing the 1987 collaboration with Rinde Eckert, Paramus New Jersey and Other Places, in the San Francisco Chronicle, called Suprynowicz' music "Powerful and often distinctive." A recording of this work, entitled In Sleep A King, featuring vocalists Rinde Eckert and Jai Uttal, is available from the German label Sound Aspects, and from Famous Brand Music.
Works for the stage include an original score for the West Coast premiere of Eisa Davis bulrusher, which was earlier nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; also scores for Amanda Moody's Serial Murderess, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party (Shotgun Players production),and The Taming of The Shrew (for the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival). Through his work as director of the New Music Theater Project at Z Space, Clark has overseen the creation of new work by more than two hundred Bay Area performers, composers, librettists, and directors.
The opera Caliban Dreams, with librettist Amanda Moody, was inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest, and originally commissioned by the San Francisco
Shakespeare Festival. It premiered as a joint production of Berkeley West Edge Opera and First Look Sonoma on July 30, August 5 & 7, 2011 in El Cerrito and August 12 & 14 at Sonoma State University. Caliban Dreams was part of the Z Space / Magic Theater New Works Initiative, and received its first complete reading in May of 2003 at the Magic Theater in San Francisco.
Clark Suprynowicz earned his B.A. in music from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and received additional training in composition with Elinor Armer and David Conte (SF Conservatory Faculty), with Ken Durling, Joel Lindheimer. Piano studies with Jim Carmichael and Thomas Wyse. Electronic music with Wayne Organ at Contra Costa College.
There are no productions for this artist in the Season Schedule of Performances which currently only dates back to 1991.
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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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