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Biography
Bern Herbolsheimer received recognition throughout the United States and Europe for over 500 works ranging from ballet to symphonic, operatic, chamber and choral works. His numerous major commissions and premieres included ballets for the Frankfurt Ballet, the Atlanta Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the Eugene Ballet. His first opera, Aria da Capo, won first prize in the National Opera Association's New Opera Competition. Mark Me Twain, his second opera, was commissioned and premiered in 1993 by the Nevada Opera for its Silver Anniversary season. "The opera is filled with attractive, dramatic, often eloquent music ... it could become an American work of genuine significance."
His Symphony No. 1 was premiered by the Florida Symphony under conductor Kenneth Jean. Other orchestral music was premiered by the Seattle Symphony, Northwest Symphony Orchestra, and Music Today in New York under the direction of Gerard Schwarz. His vocal and choral works were performed in Portugal, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, South America, Canada, Norway, Russia, Hungary, Japan, and throughout the United States. According to the Seattle Weekly, who named him as Best (Classical) Composer in 2005, "no Seattle composer has a more assured and polished craft than Herbolsheimer. His choral writing — and there's a lot of it — is luminous and subtle".
His final premieres were his chamber opera The Quartet at Carnegie Hall and Gold and Silver in Steven Soderbergh's HBO hit series The Knick.
A frequent award winner, Herbolsheimer was Seattle Artist-in-Residence (Seattle Arts Commission), Washington State Composer of the Year (WSMTA), and winner of the Melodious Accord Choral Music Competition (Te Deum), in addition to the National Opera Association's New Opera Competition (Aria da Capo). He was also the recipient of composition commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts (Symphony No. 1), Chamber Music America (Tanguy Music), the Seattle Symphony (In Mysterium Tremendum), and from numerous local organizations such as Seattle Men's Chorus, Seattle Choral Company, St. James Cathedral, Opus 7, Seattle Pro Musica, the Esoterics and the Cascadian Chorale. His works appear on dozen of CDs.
As pianist, Herbolsheimer accompanied at the Bergen International Music Festival, the Schloss Elmau Festival, and on concert series for Columbia Artists, Saint Martin's Abbey, the Spanish Institute, the Goethe Institute, the American Opera Festival of the Sierra, Estoril/Cascais Concerts in Portugal, the Tatarstan Opera in Kazan, Battelle Institute, the Ojai Music Festival, and regularly in the Western Washington area.
Herbolsheimer served on the music faculty of Seattle's Cornish College, where he taught composition-related classes and held a private studio, and the University of Washington, where he taught graduate classes in the voice program. At the end of the 2000–2001 school year he was selected as the Outstanding Teacher of Music at Cornish College.
He is a Northwest composer and is a member of BMI.
OPERA America/Opera.ca Grants Awarded
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| GRANT NAME | YEAR | Opera for a New America | 1991 |
Productions
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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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