Benjamin C.S. Boyle
“Mr. Boyle’s writing is rich in color and undeniably appealing.”
-The New York Times
Benjamin C.S. Boyle's work encompasses a large variety of genres including opera, orchestral music, chamber music, choral music, art songs, and works for piano. Works have been commissioned and performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Lyric Opera, Montreal Chamber Orchestra, the Kobe City Orchestra, the Crossing Choir and many others the world over. In 2008, at the piano, he gave the US premiere of his Sonata-Fantasywith violinist Tim Fain at the Kennedy Center in Washington and Merkin Hall in New York. In 2005, Bachanalia Orchestra premiered the Cantata To One in Paradise for string orchestra and four vocal soloists in New York. He was composer-in-residence with Young Concert Artists from 2005-7 and represented by them for many years. He is particularly noted for his composition of art songs. A compendium of these works (Complete Songs and Melodies 1998-2014) including some 60 songs was published in 2016 by Rassel Editions. His song cycle Spirits in Bondage won first prize in the NATS Art Song Competition in 2018.
Performers who champion his music include tenor Bryan Hymel, baritone Randall Scarlata, soprano Irini Kyriakidou, marimbist Makoto Nakura, soprano Kiera Duffy, flutist Mimi Stillman, harpist Emmanuel Ceysson, the Daedalus Quartet, pianists Laura Ward, JJ Penna, and Marcantonio Barone, and conductors Donald Nally and Mark Shapiro.
Major commissions in the 2017-2018 season: Singing City (Supplice, full choir, 15 mins), Lyric Fest (Spirits in Bondage, baritone and piano, 30 mins), The Crossing Choir (Cantata No. 2: Voyages, choir and orchestra, 30 mins), Makoto Nakura (Variations on a Bach Chorale, solo marimba, 18 mins).
His music is published by Rassel Editions. It is broadcast nationally on NPR, Sirius, Pandora, and many other platforms and has been featured on Performance Today. Recordings of his Sonata-Cantilena and Three Carols for Wintertide are available from Innova Records. His song-cycle Lenoriana, with Elem Eley and JJ Penna was released on Affetto in late 2015. Upcoming recordings will include Le passage des reves with Randall Scarlata, Spirits in Bondage with Dan Teadt, and Les bois du paradis with Makoto Nakura with Dr. Boyle at the piano.
His formative studies in composition, harmony, counterpoint, and analysis were under the guidance of Dr. Philip Lasser of the Juilliard School. He was trained in the method of Nadia Boulanger has been the Associate Director of the Nadia Boulanger Institute of the European American Musical Alliance since 2003.
At the age of 25, Dr. Boyle was the youngest person ever to receive a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Composition, after completing a M.M. from The Peabody Conservatory and a B.M. from the University of South Florida where he studied piano with Robert Helps. Past composition teachers of his include Narcis Bonet, David del Tredici, Christopher Theofanidis, Lukas Foss, and Nicholas Maw.
Reviews of Dr. Boyle's music have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer,The Washington Times, The New York Concert Review, and many other publications.
Dr. Boyle is Faculty in Composition, Keyboard Harmony, Counterpoint, and Analysis at the EAMA Nadia Boulanger Institutein Paris. He maintains a lively private studio in Philadelphia and around the world via Skype. He created and directs Analysis Salon, a lecture series now in its fourth season. He was formerly a professor of composition and music theory at Westminster Choir College, St. Joseph's University, Temple University, and several other institutions.