Alex Temple
{{Short description|American composer and professor}}
Alex Temple is a contemporary classical music composer and professor of music composition. Her pieces draw from multiple styles of both classical and popular music.
Compositions
Behind the Wallpaper is a narrative song cycle, with music and lyrics by Temple. In 2023, the Spektral Quartet released a recording featuring singer Julia Holter. According to Spin Magazine, the narrative was inspired by Temple's gender transition as a trans woman, using surreal, dreamlike imagery to explore feelings of otherness.{{Cite web|url=https://www.spin.com/2023/03/spektral-quartet-julia-holter-alex-temple-behind-the-wallpaper-review/|title=Spektral Quartet, with Julia Holter and Alex Temple, Release a Masterpiece: Behind the Wallpaper|work=Spin|author=Steve Hochman|date=March 9, 2023}} The Wall Street Journal compared elements of the piece to Beethoven's “Pastorale” Symphony and David Ackles's American Gothic, with chromatic melodies and various contemporary techniques.{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/contemporary-classical-music-for-the-curious-e4217548|title=Contemporary Classical Music for the Curious|first=Allan|last=Kozinn|author-link=Allan Kozinn|work=The Wall Street Journal|date=13 March 2023 }} The poems use a second-person ("you") perspective.{{Cite web|url=https://www.chicagomag.com/arts-culture/February-2020/Alex-Temple-Behind-the-Wallpaper/|title=Alex Temple Makes Music out of Dream Logic|work=Chicago}} Behind the Wallpaper contains cinematic elements reminiscent of horror films.{{Cite web|url=https://thequietus.com/articles/32673-spektral-quartet-julia-holter-alex-temple-behind-the-wallpaper-review|title=Reviews: Spektral Quartet, Julia Holter, Alex Temple|work=The Quietus|date=3 March 2023 }} The New York Times described the horror elements of a 2015 performance of the song cycle as "surreal transformations and spooky situations: a character who has been swallowing seawater and live fish, another wandering a house where the walls keep shifting."{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/arts/music/review-julia-holter-and-the-spektral-quartet-in-the-ecstatic-music-festival.html|title=Review: Julia Holter and the Spektral Quartet in the Ecstatic Music Festival|first=Jon|last=Pareles|author-link=Jon Pareles|date=February 26, 2015|work=The New York Times}}
In 2018, Temple's piece Three Principles of Noir premiered at Carnegie Hall alongside composer Valerie Coleman's Phenomenal Women{{Cite web |title=American Composers Orchestra Phenomenal Women|url=https://www.carnegiehall.org/calendar/2018/11/02/american-composers-orchestra-0730pm |access-date=2023-03-19 |website=www.carnegiehall.org}} as part of a showcase of composers under the age of forty.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/classical-music/american-composers-orchestra-21st-firsts|title=American Composers Orchestra: 21st Firsts|magazine=The New Yorker|date=October 2018}} Three Principles of Noir features a time-travel narrative.{{Cite web|url=https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmusic/article/American-Composers-Orchestra-Honors-PHENOMENAL-WOMEN-at-Carnegie-Hall-20181004|title=American Composers Orchestra Honors Phenomenal Women at Carnegie Hall|first=Kaitlin|last=Milligan|work=BroadwayWorld}}
Temple's piece Liebeslied was performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It includes surreal variations of 1940s–1950s love songs.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/the-long-haul|title=The Long Haul|date=November 21, 2011|magazine=The New Yorker|author=Alex Ross}}
Academia
Temple is a professor of music composition at Arizona State University. She has a Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) from Northwestern University.{{Cite web |title=New music concerts for winter and spring at the Bienen School of Music |url=https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/01/bienen-school-announces-new-music-concerts-for-winter-and-spring/ |access-date=2023-09-24 |website=news.northwestern.edu |language=en}}
References
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Category:21st-century American academics
Category:21st-century American composers
Category:American classical composers
Category:American music educators
Category:American women classical composers
Category:American women music educators
Category:Arizona State University faculty