“Excit­ing, amus­ing, dis­turb­ing, beau­ti­ful, and always fas­ci­nat­ing, Don Fre­und has showed him­self to be a com­poser thought­ful in approach and imag­i­na­tive in style.” (Music and Musi­cians, The Wash­ing­ton Post) Fre­und has com­posed works rang­ing from solo, cham­ber, and orches­tral music to pieces involv­ing live per­for­mances with elec­tronic instru­ments, music for dance, and large the­atre works. An inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized com­poser, he is also active as a pianist, con­duc­tor, and lec­turer. His works are pub­lished by Lau­ren Keiser Music, Boosey and Hawkes, E. C. Schirmer, See­saw, and Vivace Press.
As Pro­fes­sor of Com­po­si­tion at Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity Jacobs School of Music since 1992, teach­ing com­po­si­tion con­tin­ues to be a major com­po­nent of Freund’s career. Freund’s stu­dents from 30 years of teach­ing con­tinue to win an impres­sive array of awards and recog­ni­tions. He has also served as guest com­poser at a vast array of uni­ver­si­ties and music fes­ti­vals. He has served as composer-in-residence at the Aus­tralian National Acad­emy of Music, the Bow­doin Inter­na­tional Music Fes­ti­val, and the Bre­vard Music Cen­ter and has given lec­tures and mas­ter classes at Royal Con­ser­va­to­ries in Brus­sels, Prague, Vienna, the Hague, the Royal Acad­emy of Music in Lon­don, and Tan­gle­wood Music Cen­ter. In the fall of 2005 Fre­und toured Asia, giv­ing mas­ter cases and lec­ture recitals in Seoul, Miyazaki, Tokyo, Shang­hai, Hong Kong, Kaoh­si­ung, and Bangkok, and returned in 2009 to var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties in Tai­wan to give recitals, lec­tures, and mas­ter classes. Lec­tures from his 6-hour series enti­tled “Com­po­si­tion Lessons with JS Bach,” using color-coded scores and piano excerpts to make Bach’s WTC Book 1 a liv­ing cre­ative expe­ri­ence, are avail­able on YouTube.
Don Fre­und was born in Pitts­burgh in 1947; he stud­ied at Duquesne Uni­ver­sity (BM ‘69), and earned his grad­u­ate degrees at the East­man School of Music (MM’70, DMA’72). His com­po­si­tion teach­ers were Joseph Will­cox Jenk­ins, Dar­ius Mil­haud, Charles Jones, Wayne Bar­low, War­ren Ben­son, and Samuel Adler. From 1972 to 1992 he was chair­man of the Com­po­si­tion Depart­ment at Mem­phis State Uni­ver­sity. As founder and coor­di­na­tor of Mem­phis State University’s Annual New Music Fes­ti­val, he pro­grammed close to a thou­sand new Amer­i­can works; he has been con­duc­tor or pianist in the per­for­mance of some two hun­dred new pieces, usu­ally in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the composer.
Fre­und has received two grants from the National Endow­ment for the Arts (Cello Con­certo; Pas­sion with Tropes), grants from Jacobs School of Music to com­pose the bal­let Madame Bovary and Earth­dance Con­certo. Com­mis­sions includ­ing the Ten­nessee Arts Com­mis­sion with Opera Mem­phis (Opera: The Bishop’s Ghost), Ten­nessee Music Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (Pas­toral Sym­phony), the Mem­phis City Schools (Vista for Three String Orches­tras), the Mem­phis in May Inter­na­tional Fes­ti­val (Spring­songs), the Verdehr Trio (Tri­omu­sic), the Ten­nessee Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion (Jug Blues & Fat Pickin’ for the Governor’s School Wind Ensem­ble), the Pitts­burgh New Music Ensem­ble (Hard Cells), the Jubal Trio (Back­yard Songs), Mem­phis Bal­let (Alice in Won­der­land), the Inter­na­tional Viola Con­gress (Fan­fare for Vio­las), the Pas­tiche Ensem­ble (Rough and Tum­ble), Florida State Uni­ver­sity and Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity (Beyond the Brass Gates), the Rodrigo Riera Inter­na­tional Gui­tar Fes­ti­val (One Singer, Two Voices), Baldwin-Wallace Con­ser­va­tory (Pri­mav­era Dou­bles), Voces Novae (Child­hood Awak­en­ing), Robert and Sara LeBien (Quilt Hori­zon), Ger­man­town Sym­phony Orches­tra (Pre­ludes for Orches­tra), What­com Sym­phony Orches­tra (Word on the Street), Ensem­ble Zel­lig (Crunch Time), and the Indi­ana Music Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (Autumn­songs). Prizes include the Wash­ing­ton Inter­na­tional String Quar­tet Com­po­si­tion Com­pe­ti­tion, the Inter­na­tional Soci­ety for Con­tem­po­rary Music/League of Com­posers Inter­na­tional Piano Music Com­pe­ti­tion, the AGO/ECS Pub­lish­ing Award in Choral Com­po­si­tion (God’s Grandeur), the Rodrigo Riera Inter­na­tional Com­pe­ti­tion for Gui­tar Com­po­si­tion (Stir­rings), the Han­son Prize, the McCurdy Award, the Aspen Prize, 25 ASCAP Awards, and a Mac­ge­orge Fel­low­ship from the Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia. In 2005, Fre­und was also awarded a Guggen­heim Fel­low­ship for Romeo and Juliet: A Shake­spear­ian Music-Drama, which was given its pre­miere pro­duc­tion by the Bloom­ing­ton Play­wrights Project in 2008.
Recent per­for­mances of Freund’s music include Pri­mav­era Dou­bles and Sun­scapes by the Bre­vard Fes­ti­val Orches­tra, Rad­i­cal Light by the Kansas City Sym­phony, Sin­foni­etta by the IU Con­cert Orches­tra and the Inter­lochen World Youth Sym­phony Orches­tra, End of Sum­mer (orches­tral winds) at the Aspen Music Fes­ti­val, Depart­ing Flights (piano trio) pre­miered by Com­posers, Inc. in San Fran­cisco, Hard Cells for 14 instru­ments by the Cleve­land Cham­ber Sym­phony and the Pitts­burgh New Music Ensem­ble, Feux d’artifice-Tombeau (solo piano) and Depart­ing Flights at Merkin Hall (ISCM/League series), Soft Cells (15 instru­ments) and Quilt Hori­zon by New Music Ensem­bles at Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity and Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Life of the Party (Con­certo for Bas­soon and 16 friends) at the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tional Dou­ble Reed Con­fer­ence, and Sky Scrap­ings (alto sax­o­phone and piano) in Prague and Mon­treal. The Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity Bal­let The­atre pre­miered his bal­lets, Madame Bovary, Skin Rit­u­als, and Earth­dance Con­certo. Recent CD releases include Madame Bovary Bal­let Suite, Soft Cells, Viola Con­certo, Dis­solv­ing Music (Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity Orches­tra and New Music Ensem­ble, IUSOM-10 dis­trib­uted by Albany), Tri­omu­sic (Verdehr Trio on Crys­tal), Jug Blues & Fat Pickin’ (Cincin­nati CCM Wind Ensem­ble on Klavier), Pen­te­cost and Hard Cells (Indi­ana New Music Ensem­ble), Rad­i­cal Light (Bowl­ing Green Phil­har­mo­nia on Albany), Rough and Tum­ble (Pas­tiche Ensem­ble on ACF-Innova) and Back­yard Songs (Jubal Trio on CRI). As a pianist, Freund’s recital reper­toire has extended back from new music to sev­eral com­plete per­for­mances of Bach’s WTC Book I and his own pianis­tic real­iza­tions of Machaut. He has per­formed his Earth­dance Con­certo with wind ensem­bles at Florida State Uni­ver­sity, West Vir­ginia Uni­ver­sity, and Bowl­ing Green State University.

Cur­ricu­lum Vitae (pdf.)

Here’s an audio Pro­file of Don Fre­und from the WFIU pro­files series. Although dat­ing from the late 1990’s, it pro­vides a still accu­rate por­trait of Freund’s phi­los­o­phy of com­pos­ing and teach­ing, along with excerpts of some oldies but goodies…

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