Tamar Diesendruck

Position
Professor
Affiliated Departments
Telephone
617-747-6430

For media inquiries, please contact Media Relations

Career Highlights
  • Recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome
  • Recipient of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard Fellowship and of the Guggenheim Fellowship
  • Compositions performed by Pro Arte QuartetBoston Modern Orchestra ProjectNew MilleniumCallithumpian Consort, and Firebird Ensemble
  • Recordings include The Grief That Does Not Speak (Centaur Records), Theater of the Ear (Centaur Records), "Such Stuff" with String Quartet 1 and "Babel Dreams" with String Quartet 2 (Centaur Records), and On That Day (Centaur Records), among others
  • Commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, Fromm Foundation, a consortium of wind ensembles, New York State Council on the Arts, and Christine Schadeberg, among others
  • Residencies include MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House, and Djerassi Foundation in the U.S.,  and Bellagio (Rockefeller Foundation), Bogliasco, and Camargo Foundation internationally
  • Performances throughout the U.S., England, France, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, China, Singapore, and Israel
  • Instruments include cello and piano
Awards
  • Grants include those from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Meet the Composer, and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, among others
  • Fellowships include Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Composition at New York University, the Bunting Fellowship, Ives Fellowship, Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, American Academy Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters
Education
  • Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
  • M.A., University of California, Berkeley
  • B.A., Brandeis University
In Their Own Words

"In teaching composition, I seek to guide aspiring composers as they work to realize their own compositional voice amid a barrage of musical voices. My teaching of composition is as varied as the students I've met. My role is to provide more than encouragement; it is to give them experience with various techniques and concepts because as artists they cannot predict what they will want to communicate. I hope to free them from the limitations of narrow experience. As educated composers they will be far more liberated to make the choices that help them discover and hone their own sensibilities."

"Teaching is a dynamic endeavor, as is creative work. I come to the classroom with energy because I am actively engaged in creating music; I, too, am responsible for my own motivation, discipline, and artistic quest, and can relate directly to the students' endeavors, both artistically and practically."