about
The music of Chris Arrell celebrates the blurring of lines between human and machine, the natural and the digital, and the popular versus the avant-garde. Praised for its nuance and unconventional beauty (New Music Box, Boston Music Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution), his compositions have led to commissions from the Alte Schmiede (Vienna), Boston Musica Viva, Music at the Anthology (New York), Spivey Hall, Cornell University, and the Fromm Foundation of Harvard University. Arrell’s invitations include a portrait concert at the Alte Schmiede, selection as the Featured Guest Composer for the Ball State Univ. Festival of New Music, selection as a Composer-in-Residence by the University of Nevada (Las Vegas), selection as the featured guest composer for the Aura New Music Ensemble (Univ. of Texas-Houston), and Walking in Altamira, an extensive collaboration with Collide-O-Scope Music (New York) supported by the Ditson Foundation of Columbia University. Additional recognition for his music includes the Bent Frequency Underscore Prize, the Ettelson Composer Award, the Ossia Music Prize, and honors from the League of Composers/ISCM, the Salvatore Martirano Competition, the MacDowell and ACA colonies, and the Fulbright Hays Foundation. Performances of Arrell’s music include those by celebrated ensembles such as Alia Musica, Bent Frequency, the Bent Frequency Duo Project, Brave New Works, the Boston Musica Viva, the Boston New Music Initiative, the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, Collide-O-Scope Music, newEar, Nextet, the Puget Sound Trio, Sonic Generator, and the Ensemble Sospeso. Publishers of Arrell’s music include Beauport Classical, Electroshock Records, Navona, Parma Recordings, SCI, and Trevco Music. Arrell holds degrees from Cornell University (DMA), the University of Texas (MM), the University of Oregon (BM), and also participated in the Cornell-Columbia Exchange Scholar Program. He is an associate professor at the College of The Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in music theory and computer music and directs the Holy Cross Laptop Ensemble Federation (H-CLEF), which he founded in 2015. Prior to joining the College of The Holy Cross, Arrell served as a tenured professor and Director of Theory and Composition at Clayton State University.
chrisarrell[at]gmail[dot]com
