ABOUT FREDERIC
Frederic Glesser’s musical spectrum ranges from his rock/ blues influenced “Saucy Sally, Mad Mary” for trombone and percussion, to the arrangement of The Allman Brothers’ Band “Statesboro Blues” for string quartet, to the zany “Clearly Glass” written for Toronto’s The Glass Orchestra.
His solo piano composition “For One” (“It is as much about silence as music” wrote music critic Tim Smith of Fort Lauderdale’s Sun-Sentinel) written for pianist/ composer Max Lifchitz is now recorded on the Grammy-nominated North/ South Recording “Final Bell”. A commission by Dutch pianist Marcel Worms for The New Blues for Piano project has resulted in “Clear Blue” for solo piano, premiered at the JazzWeek Festival in Leiden, Netherlands (January 2012), and now recorded on the New Ariel label with Jeffery Jacob, piano.
His catalog also contains numerous contemporary mainstream works from small ensemble to full orchestra, which include the series of compositions written for youth orchestra.
A competent flutist before turning his attention entirely to composition, Glesser has also produced a number of significant pieces which spotlight the flute. His “Sonata” for flute and piano is now published by Falls House Press and is distributed by Theodore Presser; other select titles are available from Universal Editions (Austria), and PAN-Verlag (Germany).
BIOGRAPHY
Composer Frederic Glesser (b. 1956) grew up near Toledo, Ohio, where his early musical influences were rock, jazz, and music of the Baroque era. He studied jazz with Gene Parker and had flute studies with Kay Hartsfeld. He was later educated at Kent State University (BMus) in Ohio where he studied composition with James Waters and David Stewart, and studied flute with Raymond DeMattia and Maurice Sharp (former principal flutist, Cleveland Orchestra). His graduate studies were undertaken at the University of Miami (MMus) in Florida where he studied composition with Dennis Kam. Glesser has also been artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts with Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Martino.
Glesser’s music has been presented at concert venues throughout the United States and Europe, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, including the Weill Recital Hall and the Tenri Cultural Center; conferences including those for the Int’l Clarinet Assoc and the Nat’l Flute Assoc; and festivals including Kent-Blossom (USA), JazzWeek (Netherlands), New Music North (Canada), Modern American Composers (Ukraine, Armenia), Subtropics (USA), and Frontwave (USA). Informed by a variety of musical genres, his resulting catalog is stylistically diverse. Included among the many performers who have presented his music are artists and groups such as pianists Max Lifchitz, Kathleen Supové, Mary Kauffman, and Michael Linville (New World Symphony), bassists Luis Gómez-Imbert and Mark Neuenschwander, percussionist Ingrid Gordon, flutists Rita D’Arcangelo, Iwona Glinka, Marie Schwartz, Lisa Hansen, and Tammy Phillips, the Delgani String Quartet, Trio Casals, North/South Consonance, duo Ahlert-Schwab, Ibis Camerata, Hardwick Chamber Ensemble, Florida Symphony, Akron Youth Symphony, Canton Youth Orchestra, Wooster Symphony, and the Glass Orchestra. His compositions include works for small to medium ensemble, solo instrumental, and orchestra.
Select works are recorded on Albany, ERM Media, North/South, Navona, New Ariel, Zimbel Press, Phasma (Greece), and CDBaby.
Glesser currently resides near Asheville, North Carolina. His son Harrison lives in Asheville also, and his daughter Ashley now lives in Natick Massachusetts and works in downtown Boston.