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MIGUEL KERTSMAN, COMPOSER
Brazilian-American Composer Miguel Kertsman was born in Recife, Brazil, and grew up in a European home, surrounded by traditional Western classical music as well as the multi-ethnic music and rhythms of Brazil.
In 1984 he was awarded The Oscar Peterson Jazz Masters Incentive Award, and The Berklee Professional Music Scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, from where he graduated cum laude in record time in 1986. He studied conducting with Mo. Attilio Poto (Arturo Toscanini’s protégé and Serge Koussevitsky’s assistant in Tanglewood) at the Boston Conservatory, and composition with Bela Bartok’s pupil, Jeronimas Kacinkas; later with Prof. Stanley Wolfe at the Juilliard School in New York.
His first symphonic work, “Amazonia”, written at age 20 in 1986, was performed by orchestras across Brazil, among others at the Bienal in Rio de Janeiro, in Sao Paulo, and at the international IDRIART festival, programmed by the late Mo. Eleazar de Carvalho.
Early performances of his chamber music and jazz works were presented at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, by the Knitting Factory, and BargeMusic in New York, while more recently two of Kertsman’s symphonic works and his flute concerto saw performances, live radio broadcasts, and recordings with conductor Dennis Russell Davies, and as soloist Vienna Philharmonic’s principal flutist Wolfgang Schulz in Austria and Slovakia in 2004 and 2005 - the commission of a second flute concerto by Marina Piccinini, and the Austrian Flute Society premiered at Vienna’s Konzerthaus in late 2005.
Kertsman’s two short interactive works for children, “Fidelio” and “The Wandering Troubadour” for children’s opera were premiered in 2005 on the Opera Viva series at the Herbert von Karajan Centrum in Vienna, and subsequently saw performances at the Zurich Opera, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, and the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, Germany. In 2006 his work "Stop It" (Give Peace a Chance), was premiered in Chicago.
Upcoming performances include events in the US, Japan, Brazil, and Europe.
He is currently working on a Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, a Bassoon Concerto, a Children’s Opera for a 2009 premiere in London, a new Chamber Symphony featuring three female singers, and several independent art-film scores.
Miguel Kertsman’s music has been recorded and released worldwide by Sony Classical (his own concept album “Amazonica,” and the song “Cantiga de Ninar” with mezzo soprano Angelika Kirchschlager and guitarist John Williams), and RCA Victor / BMG (the Classical Electronica album “Rhythmic Fission, Digital Revisions of Classic Trax”.
Kertsman’s works are published in sheet music by Universal Edition International, Kossack Edition, Germany, and his own Amazonica Music, New York. His music has been featured at the World Expo 2000 in Lisbon, licensed to television for various MTV and nature programs, and filed as part of Brazil's heritage. Works are found in libraries at universities and public libraries in several countries. Kertsman’s music enjoys radio and television exposure internationally, including interviews, and specials on various NPR stations across the U.S., ABC Australia, German Public Radio, RFI France, Radio Cultura Brazil, the ORF in Austria in addition to frequent broadcasts in many other countries.
Miguel has recently appeared as a guest speaker on the Documentary “The World of the Vienna Philharmonic,” broadcast across Europe in January 2008, and to be released by Unitel on DVD in 2009. The Orchestral Album “ACORDA!” will be released in 2009 featuring Conductor Dennis Russell Davies, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Wolfgang Schulz, Flute and the works “Chamber Sympnony No. 1 Boa Viagem Shoreline”; “Sinfonia Concertante for Flute and Orchestra”, and “Amazon, Symphonic Poem”.