Patrick Greene (composer)

Greene earned his MM in Composition from the Boston Conservatory in May 2010, where his primary teachers were Andy Vores and Dalit Warshaw. While at the Conservatory, he also studied with Jan Swafford and Curtis Hughes. His undergraduate career was at Trinity College, where he earned his B.A. in Music in 2007. His primary teachers at Trinity were Gerald Moshell and Douglas Bruce Johnson.[2]

In writing about Greene's style, Jonathan Blumhofer of the Boston Classical Review notes "his musical language is ... diverse," with a "wide emotional breadth.".[3] His music has been called "undeniably expressive and smartly crafted."[4]

Greene has described his music as "extractive," rather than "abstractive,"[5] while still noting the unique expressive power of music as an abstract medium.[6]

In interviews, Greene has cited the work of composers like Maurice Ravel, Steven Stucky, Igor Stravinsky, Toru Takemitsu, and Charles Ives as inspiration; he also draws influence from Anglican choral traditions and rock bands such as Radiohead and Tool.[7]

Recent projects include Mabinte, a co-composition with the percussionist/composer Ryan Edwards. Commissioned by the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, it paired the orchestral musicians with dozens of young members of Greater Boston Boys and Girls Clubs, and featured choreography by Brian Mirage. It premiered in the Hatch Memorial Shell on the Charles River Esplanade in the summer of 2016.[8]

Greene's song cycle Year of Glad, based on erasure poetry by Jenni B. Baker from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, premiered in Chicago in spring 2016.[9] Other recent vocal works include "Come soon, you feral cats", a cycle on the poetry of W. S. Di Piero written for and premiered by the New York-based loadbang ensemble.[10]

He has collaborated with Boston Musica Viva numerous times—most recently in 2019, when they premiered The Druddigon, a ballet with a libretto by noted young adult author M.T. Anderson.[11] Another collaboration with the ensemble, Machine Language for Beginners, explores humanity's complicated history with machines and artificial intelligence;[12] it earned him the St. Botolph Club Foundation's 2015 Emerging Artist Award.[13]

Steel Symphony, a 2013 composition for virtuoso organ, has been performed extensively across the United States. Composed for Christopher Houlihan, it gained special praise in the New York Times.[14]

Greene won the Rapido! New England Composition Contest in October 2010 with his chamber piece abstractEXTRACTION, premiered by the Boston Musica Viva at Boston University's Tsai Performing Arts Center.[15][16] At the 2011 Rapido! Take Two!! National Finals in Atlanta, Georgia, the same piece garnered the Internet Audience Favorite Award. In 2007, he was commissioned by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra for two new works: a large choral/orchestral piece based on the spiritual God's Gonna Set This World on Fire, and a wind quintet based on the Kenyan folk song "Kwaharree." After fulfilling a number of commissions for various ensembles at Trinity College, he received a large-scale choral/orchestral commission for performance in 2011. He also recently composed the official anthem of the college's Cornerstone Campaign, a $32.9 million-dollar restoration project.

His orchestral thesis at the Conservatory, Night of the Four Zoas, was premiered by Yoichi Udagawa in Boston in the spring of 2010. Based on the mythopoetic writings of William Blake, Night of the Four Zoas marks the composer's third Blake-derived piece. His recent trumpet/cello/piano trio, Maxwell's Demon, was premiered in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall of 2010.[17] Other recent pieces include his Variations for String Quartet (2009–10), No Oblivion (solo clarinet, 2010), The Pieces That Fall to Earth (solo singers with chamber orchestra on the poetry of A.R. Ammons, Stephen Crane, and T.S. Eliot, 2010), Inclinado en las tardes (SATB, on the poetry of Pablo Neruda, 2010), and The City in the Sea: Landscape for 15 Strings (string orchestra, 2008).[18]

Conducting a rehearsal of his music in Boston, April 2010

• Official Website
• Review of "Steel Symphony" in the "New York Times"
• Article on "Come soon, you feral cats" in McSweeney's.
• Rapido! Composition Contest
• Fan Page on Facebook
• Greene discussing his music at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta