Michael Torke
September 22, 1961 - born in Milwaukee, WI, composed during the Contemporary period
Biography
Michael Torke, born in Milwaukee in 1961, has emerged as a contemporary composer whose music has been received with uncharacteristic warmth by traditional classical audiences and newcomers to "serious" music alike. Torke's music is characterized by a fusion of styles that range from lush Romanticism to pop- and jazz-influenced idioms. Typically, the composer makes use of colorful timbres, minimalism-influenced repetition, and dance rhythms. A number of his works have proven especially adaptable as dance scores; a number were specifically commissioned by dance ensembles.
Torke pursued formal musical studies at the Eastman School of Music, where he earned degrees in piano performance and composition; his principal teachers there included Christopher Rouse and Joseph Schwantner (composition) and David Burge (piano). His subsequent period of study with Jacob Druckman at Yale yielded two of his earliest successes, both of which demonstrate the composer's penchant for combining classical form and technique with "popular" content: Bright Blue Music (1985), commissioned by the New York Youth Orchestra, and The Yellow Pages (1985). The former was the earliest entry in an extensive series of color-themed works that eventually came to include Ecstatic Orange (1985), Green (1986), Purple (1987), Copper (1988), Red (1991), and others.
Selected Discography
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