Sure, people in the classical world had heard of New York composer Paul Moravec before 2004.
But when he won the Pulitzer Prize for music — the composition world’s Academy Award — his career exploded.
“I wasn’t unknown before, but it was nothing like afterward, where my name was basically in every paper in the country and many papers in the world,” Moravec said. “That doesn’t happen very often in the life of a composer, if at all.”
Earning the 52-year-old composer the award was his “Tempest Fantasy,” a 30-minute work for clarinet and piano trio, which will be featured Tuesday evening as part of the Faculty Tuesday Series at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Violinist Lina Bahn, who joined the CU-Boulder music faculty in 2008, became a huge fan of the work after performing it twice as a member of the Washington, D.C.-based Verge Ensemble.
“It doesn’t dumb anything down, and it’s incredibly complex, but it’s so appealing,” she said.
Bahn will be joined by pianist Alexandra Nguyen, cellist Judith Glyde and clarinetist Daniel Silver. Interspersed with the work’s five movements will be a monologue written by graduate drama student Daniella Vinitski and dance realized by Stephanie Kobes.
“Tempest Fantasy,” which was premiered in 2003 by clarinetist David Krakauer and the Trio Solisti at the Morgan Library in New York, has become one of the composer’s most frequently performed works. But not because it’s a breeze to perform.
“This is not something that you knock out in a couple of rehearsals and put up on stage,” Moravec said. “It’s very hard to play, and it’s remarkable that so many groups have taken on the challenge and done well with it.”
He describes the evocative, rhythmically energetic work as a musical meditation on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” The fantastical tale of a ship crashing on an enchanted island is the composer’s favorite play.
“It’s my fantasy,” he said. “In a certain sense, it has nothing to do with Shakespeare. The play and the characters and the situation are a point of departure, but I like to think that one can listen to the piece not even knowing the title or my association with it and still get something out it.”
Moravec wrote a short piece in 2001 for violinist Maria Bachmann, titled “Ariel Fantasy,” and she suggested expanding it. It became the opening section of a larger chamber work for the unusual instrumental combination of piano trio and clarinet.
“It’s a terrific, economical, compact little powerhouse of an ensemble,” he said. “You have a miniature orchestra there. The clarinet is versatile. It can sound like a trumpet. It can sound like a really squeally piccolo.”
Moravec generated another round of attention last summer with his first opera, an adaptation of “The Letter,” a 1924 short story by W. Somerset Maugham. The noirish work premiered at the Santa Fe Opera, drawing mixed reviews.
“It was a great experience,” he said. “Now I’m back to my usual life in New York, which is totally different from New Mexico, of course, and it (last summer) seems like a dream sometimes.”
There are no future productions of the opera scheduled yet, but Moravec said there are “irons in the fire.” Meanwhile, he is keeping busy with a host of other new compositions including a just-finished solo work for violinist Hilary Hahn and an in-progress piano quintet for Jeremy Denk and the Lark Quartet.
“I’ve been extremely lucky because I get commissions,” he said. “I get premieres at Carnegie Hall and Santa Fe Opera.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Tempest Fantasy.”
Chamber Music. University of Colorado at Boulder, Grusin Music Hall, Imig Music Building, 18th Street and Euclid Avenue. CU-Boulder’s Faculty Tuesday Series continues with a performance of Paul Moravec’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work for clarinet and piano trio. The composer will be in attendance. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Free. 303-492-8008 or
