Spencer Topel

New York

Spencer Topel is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore relationships between architecture, space, and form. He is a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Palmer Dixon Prize from the Juilliard School for best composition, BMI and ASCAP Awards, a Danish International Visiting Artist Residency in 2013 (DIVA), and was a recent artist-in-residence with the Meitar Ensemble in July 2014 (Tel Aviv). Recent premieres and shows include String Quartet (with FLUX Quartet and Ohm Speaker Inc.), Palavers (with String Noise), Listening Glass (P.3+ Bamboula NOLA), Capturing Resonance (with Soo Sunny Park at the DeCordova Museum), Svin (bassist Jesper Egelund), Callings (FIGURA Ensemble), and Five Details on the Strasbourg Rosace (Meitar Ensemble, Christ Church Orchestra, and BYCE). Topel has produced works for many of America's premiere music and art institutions, including the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Juilliard Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, TILT Brass, FLUX Quartet, and the Callithumpian Consort. Notable international collaborations include performances with the FIGURA Ensemble in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Contemporarte Ensemble in Venice, Italy, and the Meitar Ensemble with the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel Aviv, Israel. Upcoming shows include a new site-specific installation entitled Echoic Memory Forms at The Drawing Center NY as part the newly-founded Drawing Sound Series presented in September, and an exhibition in Jaffa, Israel in 2016. Topel received degrees from Cornell and The Juilliard School before joining the Tenure-Track Faculty at Dartmouth College, where he is currently an Assistant Professor of Music.