Jeffrey Mumford (b. 1955), African American Contemporary Composer

[Jeffrey Mumford: The Promise of the Far Horizon; Albany Troy 698 (2004); Photo: Faculty image at Oberlin.edu]

Jeffrey Mumford is an African American composer who was born in 1955 in Washington, D.C. His publisher, Theodore Presser Company, provides this information:

“Awards include the "Academy Award in Music" from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Fellowship to the Composers' Conference (Johnson, VT) and an ASCAP Aaron Copland Scholarship. He was also the winner of the inaugural National Black Arts Festival / Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition.

Other grants have been awarded by the Ohio Arts Council, Oberlin College, the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities Technical Assistance Program, (funded through the NEA), the Minnesota Composers' Forum, the American Music Center, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Meet the Composer, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music Inc., the ASCAP Foundation, and the University of California.

Mumford's most notable commissions include those from a consortium of presenters consisting of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Chamber Music Columbus (OH), and Omus Hirshbein (New York) (for the Pacifica Quartet and pianist Amy Dissanayake), Cleveland radio station WCLV, violist Wendy Richman, the Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust (for the Corigliano Quartet)...”

TheHistoryMakers.com interviewed Jeffrey Mumford on Jan. 12, 2005. The website reports:

“Jeffrey Mumford is composer-in-residence at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. A native of Washington, D.C., he earned his B.A. degree at the University of California, Irvine and his M.A. degree from the University of California, San Diego.

Mumford was an instructor in music at the Washington Conservatory of Music and artist-in-residence at Bowling Green State University. He composed solo works for voice, piano, and other instruments, as well as works for chamber ensemble, chorus and orchestra. His recordings include the focus of blue light and Dark Fires.”

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, makes these observations in its entry on the composer:

“Mumford's compositions, though thoroughly modern, are evocative and impressionistic, exploring the sensuous and tactile nature of sound in subtle and sophisticated ways. Like many other 20th and 21st century classical works, his compositions often involve a high degree of rhythmic complexity.

“Black Composer Offers A Few Notes” was a blog post on Monday, July 9, 2007 by Regina Brett. It was first published the previous day in The Cleveland Plain Dealer:

“Jeffrey Mumford usually stumps people when he asks them to name a black composer. They offer a blank look, then ask: Are there any? He rattles off a list: Florence Price. R. Nathaniel Dett. Tania Leon. Olly Wilson. Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges. George Walker. Add one more name to the list: Jeffrey Mumford.

Jeffrey invited me to sit on the porch at his Oberlin home and listen to his concerns about rap music. He's concerned about how it shapes, or misshapes, the identity of too many black people.” read more

[Sunday, July 08, 2007 Plain Dealer written by Regina Brett - Plain Dealer Columnist]

A List of Selected Compositions is also provided by the publisher:

fragments from the surrounding evening for piano
Albany Records Troy 266: Dark Fires

the focus of blue light for Violin and Piano
CRI CD 650: The Focus of Blue Light

a window of resonant light for Cello, Piano and Percussion
Albany Troy 698: the promise of the far horizon, CORE Ensemble

the promise of the far horizon for String Quartet
Albany Troy 698: the promise of the far horizon, Colorado Quartet

Wending
Albany Troy 698: the promise of the far horizon, Wendy Richman, Viola

a landscape of interior resonances for Solo Piano
Albany Troy 698: the promise of the far horizon, Margaret Kampmeier, Piano

the milliner's fancy for Solo Alto Saxophone
Albany Troy 698: the promise of the far horizon, Rhonda Taylor, Alto Saxophone

Selected Reviews quoted by Theodore Presser Company include:

"…a style of writing that is abstract yet attractively figurative…Mumford's sounds are distant and floating, often gentle and beguiling…remarkably rich and varied." - Joseph Dalton, Time Out New York

"[The] balance between impressionism and expressionism makes Mumford's music quite listenable if not outright interesting." - American Record Guide

"…evocative music that does not reveal all it has to say on the first hearing but invites and rewards repeated [listening]." - Joseph McLellan, Washington Post

"Put simply, Jeffrey Mumford's music is a place where extraordinary compositional skills, a keen mind, and an intuitive empathy for the full spectrum of human emotions, meet and are given expressive form." - Joshua Freeman, American Composer's Forum Newsletter

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