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Maurice Saylor, who has been described in The Washington Post as “one of
the more imaginative composers in town,” was born in Neptune, New Jersey, and
graduated with a BM and MM in Music Composition from The Catholic University of
America. His music has been performed by the Contemporary Music Forum, at the
Bowling Green New Music & Art Festival, the Delius Festival, and throughout
the United States, Central America, Europe and the Middle East, with broadcasts
over commercial and Public Radio.
Mr. Saylor has received grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and The
American Composers Forum. He has received three awards from the Delius
Composition Competition, and songs from his set Laudis Corona took both first
prizes in song (Art Song and Sacred Song) at the 2005 Diana Barnhart American
Song Conference. He was the featured composer for the 2006 Diana Barnhart
American Song Forum. Other awards include the David Lloyd Kreeger Creativity
Award in composition; the Church and the Artist Award; the National Capital Area
Composer’s Consortium Composition Competition; and the Omaha Symphony Guild
New Music Competition.
In 2005, he and Andrew Earle Simpson founded the Snark Ensemble (SnarkEnsemble.org)
to present live performances of the composer/performers’ new scores for
vintage silent films. The versatile ensemble performs on a wide variety of
instruments including many reviled by society and/or rejected by people of good
taste and common sense. The Snark Ensemble’s work has been presented at the
International Dance Festival in New York City, and they have played live on the
Kojo Nnamdi Show. Recently, they were featured on the front page of Annapolis
Capital’s Style section, and several of their scores are soon to be aired on
Turner Classic Movies. Their music is featured on a four-DVD
set, The Harry Langdon Collection: Lost and Found (released by All Day
Entertainment www.alldayentertainment.com
in December 2007) and a new four-DVD set, Becoming
Charley Chase, is due out in late 2008.
Mr. Saylor served as Composer-in-Residence for Cantate Chamber Singers twice
(2002-2004 and 2006-2008) resulting in the creation of the Concerto in A for
Cello and Vocal Orchestra (2008) and Saylor’s magnum opus The Hunting
of the Snark: an Agony in Eight Fits (2004), which was lauded in The
Washington Post thus: “It was irresistible from start to finish – clever,
deeply engaging, and performed with enthusiasm and evident delight by everyone
involved.”
Mr. Saylor is also the Music Librarian at The Catholic University of America
where he has worked as a music information wrangler for over twenty years.
Select scores and sound files of Mr. Saylor’s music may be accessed on the
Internet at www.SibeliusMusic.com
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