Peter Van Zandt Lane named new composition professor

The University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music is pleased to announce Peter Van Zandt Lane as new assistant professor of composition beginning Fall 2015. Dr. Lane, who currently serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida will be taking over direction of the Dancz Center for New Music.

Lane marks the second Theory-Composition area hire, joining Jesse Jones this coming fall.

From Lane's website:

Peter Van Zandt Lane's music has been praised by critics for its "depth, character, and pleasing complexity" (Boston Musical Intelligencer), and has been recognized for its "appeal to musicians and audiences, no matter their personal musical aesthetic" (Asymmetry Music Magazine). He has composed for orchestras, wind ensembles, choirs, and chamber ensembles, and often integrates live electronics into his works. Tapping into a visceral sense of rhythm and momentum, Peter's music often explores the tension between the organic and the mechanical, combining an eclectic range of both classical and vernacular influences. His recent full-length ballet, HackPolitik, explores the unique topic of of cyber-dissidence through live music, dance, and electronics. Bringing contemporary music and dance into the cross-section of art, technology, and politics, HackPolitik has been featured in Boston Magazine, Forbes, and BBC radio, and was hailed by critics as "angular, jarring, and sophisticated . . . very compelling . . . Ballet needs live music, and this one offered it at the highest level." (Boston Musical Intelligencer). The NYC premiere of HackPolitik was a New York Times Critic's Pick, praised as "refreshingly relevant." (The New York Times).

Peter has received fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He has been commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, The Sydney Conservatorium Wind Symphony, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, the Emory University Wind Ensemble, and the SUNY Purchase Percussion Ensemble, among others. His compositions have been performed across the United States, as well as in Europe and South America by acclaimed musicians and ensembles such as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Lydian String Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Triton Brass, Xanthos Ensemble, East Coast Composers Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, NotaRiotous, The Quux Collective, Freon Ensemble (Rome), and the New York Virtuoso Singers. Peter's work has been recognized by a number of awards and prizes, and has been featured at many national and international music festivals including Spark, Sound and Music Computing Conference (Copenhagen), SEAMUS, LIPM/IEMS (Buenos Aires), Forecast Music, Firebrand Concert Series, Third Practice, Boston Cyber-Arts, Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts, and Festival Miami. Recordings of his music are available on PARMA/Navona Records, New Dynamic Records, and Innova Records.

An avid advocate for new music, Peter has worked collaboratively with with a number of Boston-based performing arts organizations. He sits on the advisory board of Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, and on Juventas New Music Ensemble's board of directors. He was also a member of Composers in Red Sneakers, one of the nation's longest established composers consortiums. As a bassoonist, Peter has premiered dozens of works by living composers. He is engaged in the commissioning of new music for bassoon, particularly as a solo instrument in an electroacoustic setting. He has been featured as a soloist at the world renowned Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and across the nation at a number of music festivals and concert series, including the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Spark Festival, New Gallery Concert Series, Music: Cognition, Technology and Society at Cornell University, the Festival of Contemporary Music (San Francisco), and 12-Nights Electronic Music and Art, and the 2012 Sound and Music Computing Conference in Copenhagen, where he premiered Nebula Squeeze, a new work for bassoon and robotic instruments supported by a research grant from the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University.

Peter holds PhD and Masters degrees in Music Composition and Theory from Brandeis University, and a Bachelors degree from the University of Miami Frost School of Music. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of music theory and composition at the University of Florida.

Photo courtesy of petervanzandtlane.com