David Fetherolf

Composer Whisperer (Cycles 5+10)

David Fetherolf, Senior Editor at GS/AMP is author of the G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers Manual of Style and Usage, 3rd and upcoming 4th editions. This text is used in-house by GS/AMP and other publishers, as well as in conservatory classrooms, and has helped set contemporary standards for materials production. Fetherolf has also worked closely over the years with members of the Major Orchestra Librarian’s Association to help maintain and update those standards as tools and techniques have changed.

In the business for over 30 years, (12 of those years running his own business before moving to GS/AMP), Fetherolf has overseen the production of hundreds of full orchestral sets and coutless chamber works. He’s also won more Paul Revere Awards than he remembers. He’s formed close friendships with many of today’s composers including: Chou Wen-chung, Gabriela Lena Frank, Ursula Mamlok, Leon Kirchner, Yehudi Wyner, Elanor Cory, Joan Tower, John Harbison, John Corigliano, and many more. Each of these frienships has influenced his own music in some fashion or other.

Born in New York City in 1956, David started studying the violoncello at the age of five. Having learned two clefs by the age of seven, he decided to learn the treble clef by teaching himself, using both the piano in his parent’s home and the organ in the chapel of the church where his grandmother worked.

As a young adult, David enrolled in the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a non-degree student to study Violoncello. While at Longy his focus shifted from performance to composition. Eventually he and his artist wife moved to New York City, where he qualified for a Masters degree in Music Composition from the Purchase College Conservatory of Music in Purchase, New York and she completed her BFA at Pratt Institute and her MFA at Queens College. More recently, she got a second MFA in creative writing (fiction) at Bennington College.

David’s views have been enriched over the years by many teachers, including: Guido Brand, Alvin Brehm, Bruce Coppock, Richard Cornell, Edgar Grana, Anthony Newman, Vladimir Padwa, and Nathan Stuch as well as by his close working relationships with composers and life with his wife.

His works have been played in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Central and South America. He has received awards and grants from many organizations as well as several private grants and fellowships. His works have been premiered at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, at St. James Hall, London, and have been selected to represent his country by the United States Information Agency. He has received commissions from groups as diverse as The Mamaroneck Schools Foundation (USA) and the Gamavilla Quartet (CZ). Fetherolf is one of the original members of Random Access Music, a group of composers and performers in the New York City area focusing on Long Island City, an underserved area in Queens.

He has lectured extensively on the aesthetics and philosophies of contemporary music and has worked closely to realize musical projects with artists as diverse as the composer Chou Wen-chung, pianist Steven Smith, Rick Scott, of Cuneiform recording artists, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, and, most recently, with Gabriela Lena Frank.