Michael Gilbertson, BMI Foundation Composer-in-Residence at the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra
“ elegant ... particularly beautiful”
“vivid, tightly woven ... delectably subtle”
“genuinely moving”
Michael Gilbertson is the BMI Foundation Composer-in-Residence at the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He holds degrees from The Juilliard School of Music studying composition with Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse, and from Yale, where he studied with Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Ezra Laderman, Hannah Lash, and Christopher Theofanidis.
Institutions that have programmed Gilbertson's works include the Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Washington National Opera, Albany Symphony, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, Symphony in C, New England Philharmonic, Cheyenne Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, Sioux City Symphony, Dubuque Symphony, Michigan Philharmonic, Lafayette Symphony, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and professional choirs including Musica Sacra, The Crossing, and The Esoterics.
In March 2016 he was Musical America Magazine's featured Artist of the Month. Gilbertson's opera Breaking, a collaboration with playwright Caroline McGraw, was commissioned by the Washington National Opera and premiered at The Kennedy Center in November 2013. He has twice composed and conducted ballets for the New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, working with choreographers David Morse and Daniel Baker. His fifth ballet, a collaboration with choreographer Norbert De La Cruz, was premiered by the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet in July 2013.
This young composer is still only beginning his career with many projects ahead. On the horizon are new works for winds, a new work for the SFCO, New York's Music Sacra chorus, and the United States Marine Band.
