Christopher Trapani

Christopher Trapani (USA, 1980)Recession for accordion and electronics (2009)Christopher Trapani was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard, where he studied composition with Bernard Rands and poetry under Helen Vendler, and a Master’s degree from the Royal College of Music in London, where he worked with Julian Anderson. He then spent four years in Paris, where he held a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts and worked with the French composer Philippe Leroux.As the recipient of a Fulbright grant, Christopher spent the 2007/08 academic year studying Ottoman music in Istanbul, before returning to Paris to study electronic music for two years on the composition and music technology courses at IRCAM. Since September 2010 he has been based in New York City, as a doctoral fellow at Columbia University.Christopher is the winner of the 2007 Gaudeamus Prize, the first American in over 30 years to win the international young composers’ award. He has also won the ASCAP Leo Kaplan Award (2009) as well as a BMI Student Composer Award (2006) and three Morton Gould Young Composers Awards from ASCAP (2005, 2006, 2009). His scores have been performed by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Nieuw Ensemble, Asko Ensemble, Ensemble L’Itinéraire, Wet Ink, Argento Ensemble, Earplay, and the American Composers Orchestra. His music has been featured in international festivals such as the Venice Biennale and IRCAM’s Agora festival in Paris, and he has received commissions from the Jerome Foundation (for Talea Ensemble), FleetBoston Celebrity Series, and the National Endowment for the Arts.