Robert Beaser

He went on to study with Yehudi Wyner and Jacob Druckman at Yale College, graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa in 1976, and later received his Master of Music, M.M.A.

Residence in Rome proved a watershed in his development, and he embraced more tonal language, synthesizing a variety of diverse influences from jazz to folk into his work.

From 1978 to 1990 Beaser served as co-music director and conductor (with Daniel Asia) of the contemporary chamber ensemble Musical Elements at the 92nd Street Y, premiering over 200 works.

Conductors who have championed his work include Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Dennis Russell Davies, and José Serebrier.

His orchestral music draws from a wide and diverse palette, and he has made dramatic vocal works using texts from poets such as Anthony Hecht, Eugenio Montale and Gjertrud Schnackenberg in The Heavenly Feast.

[6] His Four Dickinson Songs, written for Meagan Miller and the Marilyn Horne Foundation, opens the Americans in Rome compendium on Bridge Records, performed by Hila Plitmann and Donald Berman.

[7] Recent works include Guitar Concerto for Eliot Fisk, his classmate at Yale, which mixes Andalucian flamenco with bluegrass picking techniques, and was premiered by the Albany Symphony, with David Alan Miller conducting, and The End of Knowing, a consortium commission from 27 wind ensembles, for soprano and baritone and wind ensemble on texts by poets including Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Schnackenberg, Theodore Worozbyt and James Joyce.