Subito Music Names Brian Ciach as Subito Composer Fellow

Subito Music Names Brian Ciach as Subito Composer Fellow

Subito Music Corporation has chosen Brian Ciach to be the first participant in the Subito Composer Fellowship program, developed in partnership with the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute.

Written By

NewMusicBox Staff

Brian Ciach

Brian Ciach, photo by Paolo Vairo

Subito Music Corporation has chosen Brian Ciach to be the first participant in the Subito Composer Fellowship program, developed in partnership with the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. The Fellowship will provide professional promotional efforts for Ciach’s work, along with the opportunity for him to cultivate a practical knowledge of today’s publishing industry with on-site, hands-on training.

“Following the recent success of our new partnership with the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute,” states Subito Music founder and CEO Stephen Culbertson, “we’re pleased to welcome Brian Ciach as our inaugural Subito Composer Fellow. The Composer Institute is a celebrated training program for young symphonic composers; and this year, it presented Brian’s work Collective Uncommon. Brian possesses a unique way of connecting with listeners through his use of orchestration and intense sonorities to create a visceral, musical montage. We created the Subito Composer Fellowship as a mentoring program so that composers could gain an in-depth understanding of the classical music publishing world, and we look forward to working with Brian as he gains the insights and tools that relate the business of music to the art of creating music.”

Collective Uncommon: Seven Orchestral Studies on Medical Oddities was inspired by Ciach’s visit to Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, a medical oddities branch of The College of Physicians which was founded in 1787. “The Mütter Museum,” Ciach explains, “contains a host of specimens of various odd afflictions…[and it’s] goal is to inspire research into the successful treatments and cures of various unusual disorders. I was fascinated by the collection and thought ‘What kind of piece would these relics inspire?’ [These] artifacts, as unusual and as macabre as they may seem, were once part of a living human being…[and] as museum personnel reminded me ‘there is a terrifying beauty in the spirits of those forced to endure these afflictions’. [So] I set out to create a sensitive, chiarascuro-balance between light and dark, macabre and humanitarian.” Written for Ciach’s doctoral dissertation, Collective Uncommon explores seven medical oddities using specific compositional genres.

A native of Philadelphia, Brian Ciach (pronounced “SIGH-ack”) is an internationally performed composer and active new music pianist. He studied at Temple University and holds a doctorate from Indiana University. Ciach has taught at West Chester (PA), Temple and Indiana Universities, and is currently an Adjunct Instructor at Ball State University. He served on the piano faculty at Delaware County Community College, the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, and at the Darlington Arts Center. Upcoming Ciach premieres include two commissioned works: Blank Slate for the Square Peg Round Hole for percussion quartet, and The Einstein Slide (an appendix to Collective Uncommon) written for the contemporary group Alarm Will Sound who will premiere the work during the composer’s residency at the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival.

Subito Music Corporation (SMC) provides a wide range of production and distribution services for both composers and publishers, including engraving, printing, rental, sales, and copyright administration. Under the Subito and Notevole imprints, SMC also publishes a select roster of composers including Michael Abels, Kenneth Frazelle, Nancy Galbraith, Dan Locklair, Steven Mercurio, Paul Moravec, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Roberto Sierra, and Judith Lang Zaimont. In addition SMC represents the music of composers published in the catalogs of Seesaw Music, Association for the Promotion of New Music (APNM), Columbia University Press, Canadian Brass Collection, Ben Rena Music, Sorom Editions, Dunstan House, and Zimbel Press.