An accomplished composer, Christopher Palestrant's works and arrangements have been performed from New York City to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C and throughout the United States by ensembles including the Samuel Barber String Quartet, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, the Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet, the Albemarle Symphony Orchestra and the Tidewater Winds. He is the recipient of the Third Biennial Michael Hennagin Prize, a prizewinner in the Turner Classic Movies Young Film Composers' Competition and the Randolph S. Rothschild prize in composition. His music and writings have been selected for presentation at the College Music Society national conferences, the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Intercollegiate Music Association, as the Carol Grotnes Belk Visiting Composer to Western Carolina University and for the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. Chris' compositions include the orchestral works The Wind in His Mane, Caligula and Festival Hebridean. His work also includes numerous chamber pieces, choral music and one-act operas. His primary teachers in composition include Nicholas Maw, Morris Cotel, Tom Benjamin, Jack Gallagher and Adolphus Hailstork, and master classes with John Corigliano, George Rochberg, Samuel Adler and John Maxwell Geddes. He earned degrees from The College of Wooster, Ohio (B.A.); New York University (M.A.) and the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University (M.M. and D.M.A.). Chris is a Professor of Music Composition at Elizabeth City State University, where has been honored as the "Teacher of the Year" by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. He has been listed in the Who's Who in America publications annually since 2011. Chris also serves as musicologist on the board of the Feldman Chamber Music Society of Norfolk, Virginia and is a member of the award-winning blues band Uphill, performing regularly throughout the mid-Atlantic. Publicity materials including print-quality headshots are availible below: |
