I am interested in a wide variety of music, although my own tends towards modernism. I grew up on jazz and pop music of the 1970s, but was blown away by Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski, and Penderecki while in college. I haven't looked back since. You might hear all of them in my music, as well as others, especially if you listen to my fourth symphony, which I just finished the first draft. It's posted on my YouTube channel, but I'm still tinkering with it. I'll post a link when I'm totally happy with it.
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Bio
I'm a composer of instrumental music, including 4 symphonies, a suite of dwarf planet miniatures (Far From the Fading Light), concertos for piano, violin, flute, and euphonium, 5 string quartets (the fifth won 1st Prize, Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers 2021), as well as a host of chamber music.
I'm am transitioning from teaching at CCM in Cincinnati toward full-time freelancing as a music engraver/typesetter, which I have done since the early 1990s (full time until 2012, when I returned to teaching). My octet, Labyrinth, has been recorded and should be (finally) released this spring, if not before. The BIS recording of my reorchestration of Per Nørgård's Helle Nacht (Violin Concerto No. 1) was critically acclaimed, although I wasn't credited on the recording, and the Grammophone reviewer thought the arrangement was done by the composer:
Herresthal plays here the reduction for chamber orchestra Nørgård made at his suggestion in 2002, which gives the music an extra transparency that proves even more beguiling than the original, which is accordingly not directly comparable.