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Phil Fried
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" He isn't desperate to please, perhaps because he has a lot to say" Michael Anthony Star Tribune
" impressive flexibility." Russell Platt
Philip Fried (b. 1955) grew up in Greenwich Village, New York City.
His father was a singer working on Broadway in the 1940's and his cousin is the noted composer Isadore Freed. His compositions incorporate Expressionist and Serial techniques in an idiosyncratic way. These methods are a point of departure out of which he structures the musical material into a dramatic form that communicates the emotional content of the music.
Composers who have influenced his writing include: Arnold Schoenberg, Gustav Mahler, Robert Schumann, Anton Webern (for lyricism), Edgar Varese (for power), Charles Ives and Ruth Crawford-Seeger (for ingenuity), George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim and John Coltrane.
Composer Phil Fried is a 2008 McKnight Foundation Fellow.
Recent commissions include: A Centennial Commission from the Minnesota Orchestra for Episodes, and a work for the new music ensemble Zeitgeist in honor of their 30th Anniversary concert and recording. One of his recent commissioned piano works, I remember the 60's..or was it the 70's?, is featured on the Innova label release, "Melville's Dozen," by pianist Nikki Melville. Phil has had performances and residencies with The Minnesota Orchestra, The Camargo Foundation, The Tanglewood Music Festival, The Festival at Sandpoint, June in Buffalo, Music of Our Time, and Centre Acanthes, Avignon France.
As a Jazz musician, Mr. Fried was a founding member of the New York Artists Collective. His first professional Jazz experience was performing with Ray Nance.
Second to music is Dr. Fried's passionate interest in literature. He has written several texts and adapted librettos including the text for his 3 operas; The Dungeon of Esmeralda, Hemingway's short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Eurydice based on H.D. Phil Fried completed his musical studies at the University of Chicago receiving his Ph.D. in Music Composition in 1985.
Phil can also be funny. As he has composed and authored a number of humorous songs and arias, some commissioned by Opera Bob for their hit 2009 Minnesota Fringe Performance, Secrets Revealed.
Phil is an active "blogger" on http://philipfried.blogspot.com, http://classicallounge.com and on http://newmusicbox.org.
Besides blogging for music education, http://keepinstrumentalmusicinsaintpaul.blogspot.com/
Since 1999 he has maintained a free music composition lesson Page which can now be found on: http://philfried.com/compositionlessons/
Log on as a "guest."
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Phil Fried, Minnesota composer/performer and 2008-09 McKnight Artist Fellow, was part of the exciting free jazz scene in the 1970's as a founding member of the New York City Artists Collective at 501 Canal Street. There he met and then performed with Tom Bruno, Ellen Christi, and Ray Anderson and others. This experience was crucial to his musical development as it placed musical and harmonic freedom above all. Music was all about listening, feeling, and reacting. Tonality then seemed to be without a context and out of place. Improvizational composition also seemed untenable at the time, and this is what lead Phil to compose serial (notated) music and also to perform completely improvised performances.
Besides his membership in the Music and Art and the Queens College Jazz bands, Phil's first professional jazz experience was performing with Ray Nance and Brooks Kerr. Of course Phil also performed bass and lead guitar with many rock bands. After a hiatus to study performance and composition he returned to composer/performing. Phil's studies include: a B.M in string bass performance with Julius Levine and composition with: Henry Weinberg, Hugo Weisgall, George Perle, Ralph Shapey and Brian Ferneyhough.
He also studied with Luigi Nono at Centre Acanthes in Avignon France.
Fried has performed solo at Roulette in NY, Chicago (most recently at the International Society of Improvising Musicians convention), and all over the mid-western states. As classical composer he has received a centennial commission from the Minnesota orchestra for Episodes, and a commission for the new music ensemble Zeitgeist for their 30th Anniversary concert and recording. One of his piano works, I remember the 60's..or was it the 70's,? is featured on a recent Innova label release, Melville's Dozen," by New Zealand pianist Nikki Melville. Phil is an active "blogger" on http://philipfried.blogspot.com/ and classicallounge.com where he recaps his comments from newmusicbox.org. Phil Fried has maintained a free music composition lesson page since 1999 which can now be found on Http://Philfried.com/compositionlessons. Log in as a "Guest."
  Drawings by Foster Willey |
Man and Machine, Solo Bass with real time analog electronics.
An evening of experimental music and free jazz with Philip Fried, a composer and experimental improviser on the string bass who combines free jazz, serial music, atonal music, and electronics with an elegant lyricism.
http://Sequenza21.com has described Phil's solo work as "entrancing."
Man and Machine:
Humanity has always found the machine to be a benefit to society. Yet on closer look we see that this relationship is fraught with passions and ambiguity. Machines can save lives or end them, build or destroy. Every machine use has its supporters and detractors. Every benefit its downside. Machines are not human but when we say "inhuman" we actually mean people taking on the aspects of a machine. Being emotionless. Then again machines are merely a reflection of their operators and programmers. My performance is an aural presentation of these ambiguities.
Solo Improvisation -- I found my voice as an instrumentalist performing on an upright electric bass. The sound is amplified/unamplified, processed/unprocessed, and mixed via touch and foot pedals by me in real time. The soundscapes I create are in touch with many styles of experimental music. My approach is non tonal as in my composed music but its effect is more intimate and personal. It was crucial for me that my first explorations into non/extended tonal materials were with jazz music. After the careful study of composed music and classical string bass technique I have come full circle and have returned to improvisation.
My use of electronics with my electric upright bass is an attempt to mine new ideas from old technologies in this case the analog MS-10. Time moves so fast that we tend to discard a technology before we can fully explore it. Since my electric upright is analog it would follow that my sound processing would also be analog synthesis. Since the upright electric bass is also a machine there is already an immersion into the electronic machine world. A dichotomy develops because the bass does not create its own sound, I have to play it, the Ms-10 is another story.
In my improvisations with real time electronics-since I am in the moment I don't think about anything-it just happens. That said, as an after thought, I realize that I either ignore, follow, comment, become one, or struggle against the electronic sounds. My performances can have the effect of projecting a trance like state to the audience.
Composer Phil Fried is a 2008 McKnight Foundation Fellow.
Recent commissions include: A Centennial Commission from the Minnesota Orchestra for Episodes, and a work for the new music ensemble Zeitgeist in honor of their 30th Anniversary concert and recording. One of his recent piano works, I remember the 60's..or was it the 70's?, is featured on the Innova label release, "Melville's Dozen," with pianist Nikki Melville. Phil has had performances and residencies with The Minnesota Orchestra, The Camargo Foundation, The Tanglewood Music Festival, The Festival at Sandpoint, June in Buffalo, Music of Our Time, and Centre Acanthes, Avignon France. As a Jazz musician, Mr. Fried was a founding member of the New York Artists Collective. His first professional Jazz experience was performing with Ray Nance. Mr. Fried comes from a noted musical family. His father, Louis Fried, was an original cast member in several Broadway shows including Brigadoon and Carousel. His cousin was the noted composer Isadore Freed. Second to music is Dr. Fried's passionate interest in literature. He has written several texts and librettos including the text for his opera, The Dungeon of Esmeralda, and an adaptation of Hemingway's short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Phil Fried completed his musical studies at the University of Chicago receiving his Ph.D. in Music Composition in 1985.
Phil is an active "blogger" on http://philipfried.blogspot.com, http://classicallounge.com and on http://newmusicbox.org. Besides blogging for music education, http://keepinstrumentalmusicinsaintpaul.blogspot.com/ Since 1999 he has maintained a free music composition lesson Page which can now be found on: http://philfried.com/compositionlessons/ Log on as a "guest."
Awards/Fellowships/Residencies/Commissions
- Opera Bob Opens His Drawers, 2009 MN. Fringe Review
- McKnight Composers Fellowship, 2008
- Itty Bitty Symphony,Or not a lota sonata, Commissioned by Zeitgeist for their 30th Anniversary concerts June 2008
- International Society of Improvised Music Conference (December 2007) solo bass/electronics performance
- Episodes, orchestral piece centennial commission by the Minnesota Orchestra for "Extreme Orchestra" concerts Fall 2006
- Meet the Composer 's Creative Connections award Fall 2006 for Episodes
- Six for Minneapolis, song cycle commission by Zeitgeist, St. Paul, MN, March 18, 2006
- American Composers Forum Subito Grant, first performance, Zeitgeist, December 2005
- ASCAP Standard Awards 1994-2009 consecutive, annual award for excellence
- July 11-14, 2004 Zeitgeist/Composer Workshop, residency for exploration and experimentation with the Zeitgeist ensemble, supported in part by a Meet the Composer Grant
- May 2004, Elements for Orchestra, Movement IV, Fire scheduled for the Minnesota Orchestra's Reading Session and Composer Institute
- March 2004, Meet the Composer Grant for participation in Minnesota Orchestra's Reading Sessions
- September-December 2003, Composer-in-Residence, Camargo Foundation Cassis, France
- February 12 and 14, 2003, My First 12-Tone Piece or Serial Music Isn't Just for Breakfast Anymore, commission by Fair School, Robbinsdale MN for youth string orchestra and narrator
- 2002, Concert Work for String Bass, commission by Peter Lloyd, principal bassist, MN Orchestra
- February-April 2002, Incidental Music for Medea, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Minneapolis, MN
- 2002, First Alternate for Camargo Foundation residency in Cassis, France
- 2000-01, Esquisse I & II commissioned by the Augsburg College Concert Band
- November 4-6, 1999, Elements for Orchestra, Movement III, performed by the Minnesota Orchestra
- 1999, ASCAP Bernstein Fund Award
- May 1998, American Composer's Forum, Minnesota Orchestra Perfect Pitch Reading Session, Elements for Orchestra, Movements II & III
- 1997, American Composers Forum Commission Grant/Jerome Foundation for Sea Flowers
- June in Buffalo, String Quintet No. 2, Boston Composers Quartet, Buffalo, New York 1991
- Music of Our Time, reading of String Quintet No. 2, Bloomington, Indiana 1990
- American Academy of Arts and Letters, Nominated to the Awards Panel 1989,1990,1991
- 1989 & 1990, Festival at Sandpoint, Sandpoint, Idaho
- 1988 & 1989, Center Acanthes, Avignon, France, Study with Pierre Boulez and Luigi Nono
- 1985-86, Fromm Foundation Grant for Meditations and Satires
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Letters Too!
- Letter published in the September 2003 Atlantic Monthly as a response to Matthew Miller's A New Deal for Teachers
- "Perseverance Pays Off," article for Sounding Board, American Composers Forum, Feb. 2000, Volume 27 #2
- April 2003, Minneapolis Friends of the Public Library 3rd Annual Celebrity Poetry Reading performance and lecture on the setting of William Reichard's An Alphabet
- "Notes From The Underground: Problems Facing Presenters and Educators of Classical Music Arts Today," Center for the Performing Arts Newsletter, Minneapolis, MN, Winter 1997-98
- Guest Speaker for Opera Millennium Recital Series - five humorous and informative lectures on contemporary opera in conjunction with the ensembles performances throughout 1996 and 1997
- Two letters published in the New York Times as a response to articles in the Sunday Arts: 1)"The Classical Industry Builds Only on Trends," May 18, 1997; 2) "avant-garde 1990, Creative Marketing," October 21, 1990 (links on the homepage)
- "Meter and Velocity as Structural Determinants in Milton Babbitt's Third String Quartet," Yale University School of Music, April 15, 1992 and New York State Music Theory Society/Arnold Schoenberg Institute at Columbia University, October 6, 1991 (now on my moodle lesson page)
- "Erwartung, Schoenberg's Annotated Libretto," C.U.N.Y. Graduate Center Theory Symposium, April 13, 1992
- "The Influences of the American Folk Tradition In 20th Century Music: Ives, Gershwin, Copland," Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, Derby Line, VT, July 11, 1991
- Blogging on various music blog pages; NewMusicbox.org, Classicallounge.com, philipfried/blogspot.com, and Sequenza21.com.
- "Notes From The Underground: Problems Facing Presenters and Educators of Classical Music Arts Today," Center for the Performing Arts Newsletter, Winter 1997-98 (on moodle)
- Guest Speaker for Opera Millennium Recital Series - five humorous and informative lectures on contemporary opera in conjunction with Opera Millennium Performances, Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, 1996 and 1997
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Most recent first
- Texts in English, for humorous concert arias (2007-9) in the style of: Puccini, Wagner, Rossini, Berlioz, Verdi
- Opera Bob Theme
- Libretto and music for Opera in Three Acts, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, complete. Vocal score, full orchestral score
- Singable English translation of "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde by R. Wagner, commissioned and performed by Nautilus Music Theater Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, March 1998
- Libretto and music for Opera in Two Acts, The Dungeon of Esmeralda, 1992
- Libretto and music for Opera, Lizzie Borden, 1991
- Text Eros set for voice and piano by Richard Aldag, 1984
- Text and music, Memories, for voice and piano, 1980
- Text and music, Lies, for voice and piano, 1979
Conductor for orchestra, chamber and band ensembles - concert and music theater works; Performer on String Bass, Guitar, and sometimes singer in many styles: classical, jazz, klezmer, popular styles; Arranger and other stuff too!
- Recent Solo Bass Performances, 2009, in NYC; January 28 and 30th Music at MacDougel and Roulette
- A Stick in the eye, Solo Bass performances with real time analog sound processing; CD's Available
- A Stick in the Eye solo bass performance w/ electronics; Roulette, New York City, October 7, 2005
- A Stick in the Eye solo bass performance w/ electronics; Acadia Cafe, Mpls, 2004 -8
- Solo Performances at: Roulette NYC, Acadia, Studio Z, Dreamland Arts Saint Paul, ISIM conference Chicago
- Prague 24 Klezmer, bass/baritone, bass player arranger, CD available
- American Music Center Cabaret, solo bass, April, May, 1999
- Patrick's Cabaret, jazz bass, singer, Minneapolis, MN, January 1998
- Film, Stage, Art, Red Eye Theater, MN Fringe 2000, singer and bass player
- Evil Twins Duo, jazz bass, Minneapolis, MN, January 1998
- Center for Performing Arts Recital Series - composer, arranger, guitarist, baritone, Minneapolis, MN, 1997-98
- Sonic Circuits IV, American Composers Forum/Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, 11/6/97, Recorder
- Recording: Squezzergrabit, Electric Bass and Digital Effects, Minneapolis, 1996
- New Music Theater Ensemble, Three Visitations (Kim Sherman), String/Electric Bass, 1996
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120 plus performances as band/choir director SPPS.
- 2002, Conductor, Music Director, Minneapolis JCC, Music Man
- 2001, Esquisse II Augsburg College Concert Band, Conductor and composer
- Director of Music Theater, Camp Encore Coda, Sweden, Maine, (Fiddler on the Roof, Pirates of Penzance, Broadway Review), Summer 1995
- Music Director: Hillcrest High School, Jamaica, Queens (Little Shop of Horrors, Once on this Island), 1992-93
- Music Director: Camp Suffield, CT, 1983 (Hair, Godspell, Annabell Broom)
- Assistant Costumer: Bent, Boston Premier, 1983
- Actor: Neighborhood Playhouse Jr. School, New York City (1967-70)
- University of Chicago, Ph.D., Music Composition, 1985
- Queens College, M.A., Music Composition, 1981
- Queens College, B.M., Music Performance, 1980
- High School of Music and Art, New York City, 1973
Current Employment
Itenerant Elementrary Band Teacher Saint Paul Public Schools
Training
- Composition: Ralph Shapey, Henry Weinberg, Hugo Weisgall, George Perle, Brian Ferneyhough, Luigi Nono
- Conducting: Ralph Shapey, Maurice Peress, Pierre Boulez
- Instruments: Julius Levine, Joseph Gustafeste (Chicago Symphony)/Double Bass
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- Bernstein Grant, ASCAP, 2000
- Minnesota Orchestra Perfect Pitch Reading Session, 1998
- American Composers Forum Commission Grant/Jerome Foundation, 1997
- ASCAP Standard Awards 1994-2008 etc.
- American Academy of Arts and Letters, Nominated to the Awards Panel 1989,1990,1991
- June in Buffalo, Buffalo, New York
- Music of Our Time, Bloomington, Indiana
- Festival at Sandpoint, Sandpoint, Idaho
- Center Acanthes, Avignon, France Boulez and Nono
- Fromm Foundation Grant ("Meditations and Satires")
- Salerno Scholarship for Graduate Studies (Queens College)
- Aston Magna Music Festival Fellowship
- Consultant: Jerome Foundation, St. Paul, MN - review and report on contemporary opera works
- Consultant: Bloomington Schools, MN - introduced educational uses of MIDI, Apple Computer programs, "Rock, Rap, & Roll," "The Pianist," "Music Time," "Band in a Box and "The Theremin as an Educational Tool" "Sibelius"
- A Stick in the Eye, Live at Acadia with Chris Granias, and
- Left for Dead (also available as a DVD) for 10 bucks plus shipping contact me here:
Phil's Other CD's Available Now.
- Melville's Dozen, I remember the 60's..or was it the 70's?, Piano Solo
- Squezzergrabit, Bass, Klezmer
- Prague-24, Bass, Klezmer
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| Artist: Christopher Rouse |
| Title: Iscariot |
| Album: Gorgon |
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