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Biography


Christopher Eastburn is a versatile musician, director, and award-winning composer. Chris’s composing is a synergistic culmination of his work as a producer and choral director, classical composition training, and experience in early music, classical, rock and contemporary ensembles, creating energetic, melodic, emotionally visceral vocal and instrumental music. To commissions and collaborations he brings attention to detail and expert musicianship together with a perspective of emotional depth and understanding and respect for the range of human experience--inspiring contemporary ballet scores to lively and clever theatre music, engaging choral pieces to colorful orchestral arrangements.

Recent commissions include Consent to Gravity, a string quartet & vocal quartet score for Newport’s contemporary ballet company Island Moving Co. performed at the Providence Performing Arts Center, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the RISD museum, Pace-McGill in NYC, MassArt in Boston and by the faculty quartet as part of last summer’s Music at Port Milford chamber music festival in Ontario.
Chris is 2006-2007 composer-in-residence for Island Moving Co. 

He also recently completed a commission for the nationally renowned PALS  Children's Chorus celebrating the town of Brookline's 300th Anniversary (libretto from Brookline poet Margo Lockwood)  performed at Boston’s Jordan Hall on March 13th, 2006.  Other recent commissions include a score for As You Like It for the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble, orchestra arrangements for the von Trapp family’s newest generation of singers, scores for Tufts University faculty choreographer Danny McCusker, and a co-commission with Eliza Moore “Castles in the Air” premiered by PALS at the American Choral Directors Association conference at Harvard’s Sanders Theater.

In the Boston area, Chris directs the much heralded Family Folk Chorale.  Under his direction the group has grown from 15 to over 50 singers and has had a 40 family waiting list.  The chorale has sold out shows at the historic Club Passim, the Regent Theatre, and the Museum of Our National Heritage, done benefit concerts for the U.N. World Food Programme etc. and has performed with Robbie O’Connell (of the Clancy Bros.), Tracy Grammer, Mark Simos and Scott Alarik (folk reviewer for the Boston Globe, Sing Out!, and NPR’s Here and Now Program).

Chris also serves on the board of the PALS Children’s Chorus and is editor of the “PALS Presents” choral publishing series.   Each summer, he conducts the choir at Music at Port Milford summer music school and festival.  He has studied at Connecticut College, Yale University, Aspen & Bowdoin Festivals and Boston University (M.M. ’97) where the faculty elected him to the National Music Honor Society.  Ensemble (non-directing) experience has included collaborations with singer-songwriter Eliza Moore and her Celtic-influenced folk band (arranging, guitar, and vocal harmonies), the Boston Secession (tenor), tenor section leader for the adult choir at the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill and in BU’s Marsh Chapel choir, rock band William Wants a Doll (lead guitar, composer, and vocalist), and the Portland Early Music Consort (lutenist and arranger). 

Chris enjoys composing for and working with a variety of ensembles and making music with people of all ages and walks of life.


Resume

COMPOSITION

Composer and Arranger        1988-Present
Works performed in U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia at venues including Cunningham Studios- NYC, Getty Museum-L.A., Harvard’s Sanders Theatre-Cambridge, Jordon Hall-Boston, RISD Museum-Providence, Rose Theater-Omaha, Musica Viva Australia, Faneuil Hall-Boston.  Winner of international composers’ competition, May 2000.  Invited to be the U.S. representative to Lo Zecchino d’Oro in Bologna, Italy.  Member of ASCAP and the American Music Center

Commissions           1992-Present
Newport’s Island Moving Co. (vocal & string quartet ballet score performed by the Providence String Quartet), PALS Children’s Chorus (choral works Call Across the Generations for town of Brookline, MA’s 300th anniversary & Castles in the Air, co-written with Eliza Moore for PALS finale song at 2004 Eastern ACDA performance), Rattlesby Management (orchestral arrangements for the Von Trapp Children),  Tufts University (dance scores for Tufts faculty member Daniel McCusker), The MIT Shakespeare Ensemble (full vocal score with lute, gamba and recorders for As You Like It), Andover-Newton Theological School (vocal, flute and electronics score for TEA a performance project based on the Japanese Tea Ceremony), American Renaissance Theatre (lute, recorder and vocal score for Henry IV part II), Children’s Theatre of Maine (vocal and chamber orchestra score for James & the Giant Peach) 

CHORAL

Choral Conductor, Music at Port Milford, Ontario, Canada                         (Summers) 1999-Present 
 Teaches alongside faculty members from Toronto Symphony & Canadian Ballet Orchestra. Selects repertoire, rehearses and conducts 40-voice choir and 12-voice madrigal choir of students ages 12-18, for performances at this international chamber music school & festival.  Repertoire ranges from Palestrina to contemporary music.

Choral Conductor/Artistic Director, Family Folk Chorale, Arlington, MA   1999-Present
Programs, arranges and conducts rehearsals and concerts for 50-voice intergenerational chorus and instrumental ensemble performing contemporary American folk music.  Sold out performances at venues including the National Heritage Museum, Arlington’s Regent Theatre and the legendary Club Passim.  Performances with Scott Alarik (Radio Host, Boston Globe Folk writer), Robbie O’Connell  (Clancy Bros.), Jennifer Kimball (Polygram recording artist), Tracy Grammer & Jim Henry (Signature Sounds recording artists).   Under Chris’s direction group has grown from 15 members to 50 members with 40-family waiting list.

Trustee, PALS Children’s Chorus, Brookline, MA                  2000-Present 
Board member with nationally-renowned children’s chorus which has performed in Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Tanglewood, etc.  Editor for choral publishing series PALS Presents; Co-produces annual God Bless the Child concert series with PALS GirlChoir & AKAFellas which benefits Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Inc., an agency that serves homeless, runaway, and at-risk youth. 

Artist in Residence (Choral Conducting), Chestnut Hill School                                    2004-Present
During weekly visits selects music, rehearses students ages 8-11 and adult musicians, conducts concerts and Spring musical.  Repertoire ranges from John Rutter to World Music to Broadway.  Additionally teaches classroom sight-singing to students using the Oxford Folk Song Sight Singing Series. 

  Youth Choir Director, Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, MA                               1999-Present
Selects repertoire, rehearses youth choir ages 5-14 and conducts performances as part of Episcopal worship services.  Repertoire ranges from Purcell and Wilcocks to Bluegrass Gospel and Spirituals.  Guest-conducts adult parish choir during monthly All-Parish Eucharists.  In summer of 2005 lead Spanish and English sacred music on  trip to Cuba. 

  Classroom Instructor, Boston University, Boston, MA          1994-1997
As a graduate student, taught well-received classes in ear training, including solfege and harmonic and rhythmic dictation to undergraduates.  Utilized traditional and popular styles for dictation and explanation of theoretical/harmonic concepts.

  Music Director, Children’s Theater of Maine, Portland, ME        1992-1994
Auditioned singers and instrumentalists; developed musical concepts for shows in collaboration with directors; wrote and arranged original scores; rearranged pre-existing scores; conducted performances. Productions included A Magic Island, The Rise of Frank the Rabbit, James and the Giant Peach, A Christmas Carol, Really Rosie, Lobster Stew, Pinocchio, Julie the XVIII.
 

ENSEMBLES

 Church of the Redeemer, Tenor Section Leader, Newton, MA                                    1998-1999
Performed in services and semi-annual concerts

Marsh Chapel Choir, Tenor Section Leader, Soloist, Boston, MA         1995-1998
Performed weekly services that were broadcast live on WBUR, 90.9 FM

Portland Early Music Consort, Lutenist and Arranger           1992-1994
Performances include concerts at U.N.H., Bates College, Saint Luke’s Cathedral
 

 EDUCATION 

Boston University, Boston, MA                      M.M. 1997
Composition studies with Charles Fussell and Tison Street
Conducting Studies with Theodore Antoniou
Honors:  Elected by the Faculty to the National Music Honor Society, Merit based scholarship and teaching assistantship

Connecticut College, New London, CT         B.A. 1991
Composition studies with David Vayo & Noel Zahler
Conducting Studies with Paul Althouse
Honors:  Distinction in Music

Yale University, New Haven, CT           1990-1992
Visiting music student, composition studies with Jan Radzynski

 FESTIVALS 

Bowdoin Music Festival, Brunswick, ME               1993
Fellowship Composer, Master Classes with George Crumb, 
Jacob Druckman, Elliott Schwartz, William Bolcom
  
Aspen Music Festival, Aspen, CO                1991            
Composition Program.  Studies with George Tsontakis

Sonoklect New Music Festival, Lexington, VA               1991 
One of ten undergraduate composers selected nationwide, full scholarship
Composition performed by bassist Robert Black