Acclaimed Composer James Primosch Returns Home to Celebrate 50th Anniversary of Bach Institute
Cleveland native and Cleveland State University music graduate James Primosch realized early on that he had a calling to music and that passion has driven his life path ever since.
“One does not chose music, music chooses you,” he says. “I have been very fortunate to explore my love affair with music through performance and composition, while helping others to pursue that same passion.”
Primosch, who has composed music for some of the world’s top orchestras and served for over three decades as a professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania, will return to Cleveland this spring to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute. One of the world’s leading research centers on the music and life of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Institute, located at Baldwin Wallace University, has commissioned a new choral work by Primosch that will be premiered at BW in April of 2020.
“It is amazing to be asked to compose a piece in honor of Bach, one of the true giants of classical music, and to have it premiered in my home town is just icing on the cake,” he adds.
Primosch graduated from CSU with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1978, and then went on to receive a master’s degree from Penn and a doctorate from Columbia University. He argues that the education he received at Cleveland State provided a tremendous foundation, as well as the opportunity to learn from and play with working professionals in a host of musical genres.
“Cleveland State was the perfect place to develop my skills as a musician and a composer and allowed me to gain all I needed to be prepared for admittance to a prestigious graduate school,” Primosch notes. “In addition, CSU gave me a wide range of opportunities to hone my craft and experiment with all kinds of musical forms, from classical to jazz to electronic music.”
He began teaching at Penn in 1988 and currently serves as director of the University’s Presser Electronic Music Studio. Over the years his compositions have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony and the New York New Music Ensemble, among others, and appeared on over a dozen recordings. He is also active as a pianist, performing jazz, contemporary and liturgical music.
“Music allows me to challenge myself and nourish my mind and soul,” he says. “I have been truly blessed to be able to gain that nourishment through a long musical career that began when I entered CSU.”
21st Century Consort Records "Cathedral Music" (CD Review)
21st Century Consort Records “Cathedral Music” (CD Review)
Cathedral Music Works by James Primosch, Stephen Albert, and Christopher Patton Lucie Shelley, treble; Mary Mackenzie, soprano 21st Century Consort; Christopher Kendall, conductor Albany Records CD Troy 1615 Washington’s National Cathedral might not be the first place one considers as the best to record chamber forces. But Cathedral Music, the 21st Century Consort’s new Albany recording, revels…
