... one of the most fertile musical minds to emerge in the US over the past generation. -- Andrew Clark, The Financial Times of London
Born in Washington D.C. in 1971, Michael Hersch first came to international attention at age twenty-five, when he was awarded First Prize in the American Composers Awards. The award resulted in a performance of his Elegy, conducted by Marin Alsop in New York's Alice Tully Hall early 1997. Later that year he became one of the youngest recipients ever of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition. Mr. Hersch has also been the recipient of the Rome Prize (2000), the Berlin Prize (2001) and both the Charles Ives Scholarship (1996) and Goddard Lieberson Fellowship (2006) from the American Academy of Arts & Letters.
His work has been conducted in the U.S. and abroad under conductors including Mariss Jansons, Robert Spano, Alan Gilbert, James DePriest, Carlos Kalmar, Marin Alsop, and Gerard Schwarz, for the major orchestras of Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Seattle, Dallas, and Oregon, among others. He has written works for soloists including Garrick Ohlsson, Boris Pergamenschikow, Walter Boeykens, Peter Sheppard-Skaerved, Midori, and ensembles including the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
His music increasingly recorded, Mr. Hersch's second disc on the Vanguard Classics label was selected by The Washington Post and New York Newsday as among the most important recordings of 2004/5. The disc is the follow-up to his first, which features Mr. Hersch performing his Two Pieces for Piano and Recordatio, with additional performances of Mr. Hersch's chamber works for strings by the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic. A disc of Mr. Hersch's orchestral works, including his early Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, was released in 2006 with Marin Alsop conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on the Naxos American Classics series. In late 2009, Vanguard Classics releases the first disc in a series of three in a major survey of Hersch's works for solo string instruments.
In 2001, while living in Germany, Mr. Hersch completed his Symphony No. 2, which was commissioned by Mariss Jansons and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. A work for clarinet and cello written for clarinetist Walter Boeykens was premiered at the Pantheon in Rome that year as part of the Romaeuropa Festival. In the summer of 2002, his Octet for Strings, commissioned by Boris Pergamenschikow and the Kronberg Akademie, was given its premiere at the Schloss Neuhardenberg Festival in Brandenberg. For the 2002/03 season Mr. Hersch was selected as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's resident composer by conductor Mariss Jansons. Mr. Hersch's Piano Concerto, commissioned by Garrick Ohlsson and the orchestras of St. Louis, Oregon and Pittsburgh, was premiered in the fall 2002. In early 2003, at the Philharmonie in Berlin, the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic performed two of Hersch's works including the Octet for Strings and the premiere of his Duo for viola and cello. Later that year Mr. Hersch gave the world premiere of his Recordatio and Two Pieces at the Musica XXI Romaeuropa Festival in Italy. During this same concert, cellist Daniel Gaisford gave the premiere of Mr. Hersch's Sonata No. 2 for Unaccompanied Cello. In the fall of 2004, his work for violin and piano, the wreckage of flowers, which was commissioned by Midori, was given performances by the violinist and pianist Robert McDonald in Lisbon, London and New York. Arraché, which was commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the opening of their new concert hall, was premiered in early 2005. On October 14th, 2006 in Philadelphia, Mr. Hersch gave the world premiere of The Vanishing Pavilions -- a work for solo piano with a duration of over two hours, the writing of which had occupied him for many years. The piece was released in 2007 on the Vanguard Classics/Musical Concepts label as a double-CD set to great acclaim, a work the Philadelphia Inquirer called, "music that's an artistic expression of the highest sophistication... perhaps the most imposing work yet in an output that began imposingly more than a decade ago."
Also regarded among today's most formidable pianists, Mr. Hersch has appeared on the Van Cliburn Foundation’s “Modern at the Modern” Series, the Romaeuropa Festival, the Festival of Contemporary Music “Nuova Consonanza”, American Academy in Berlin Series, Festa Europea della Musica, St. Louis' Sheldon Concert Hall, and in New York City at Merkin Concert Hall, the 92nd St. Y - Tisch Center for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, among others. During the summer of 2001, Hersch was asked to write a work for composer Hans Werner Henze which Mr. Hersch performed for Henze on the occasion of his 75th birthday.
Past performance highlights include the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's centennial commission of his Symphony No. 1 which premiered in 1999, with repeat performances at the Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In 1998, Mr. Hersch had works premiered with the New York Chamber Symphony and the CBC Vancouver Symphony. Other orchestral performances have taken place with the major orchestras of Seattle, Atlanta, Cincinnati and the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. In 2007, violinist Peter Sheppard-Skaerved premiered Mr. Hersch's Fourteen Pieces for unaccompanied violin at a concert held in Janacek's home in Brno, Czech Republic. In 2008, he repeated the piece and the wreckage of flowers with pianist Aaron Shorr in London. Mr. Hersch's most recent major works, the Chamber Concerto for piano and thirteen players, commissioned by Shai Wosner, and his Last Autumn for saxophone and cello, commissioned by saxophonist Gary Louie and the Washington Performing Arts Society, are scheduled for premieres in 2010.
Upcoming projects for 2010 and beyond include new works for the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival Orchestra, the Network for New Music, and baritone Thomas Hampson.
Mr. Hersch was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Norfolk Festival for Contemporary Music, and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. He studied at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore and the Moscow Conservatory in Russia. Mr. Hersch currently serves on the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.