Douglas Boyce

Douglas Boyce writes chamber music that bridges the medieval and the modern, the visceral and the cerebral. Praising his Quintet “l’homme arm锝, Allan Kozinn in The New York Times, wrote “he couches [the medieval melody] in such thoroughly modern scoring that the ear is lured to other things, including the juxtaposition of eerie string writing with playful material for the clarinet and piano, or the lively interplay among all five instruments.” Regarding his Book of Songs (2006), the Washington Post wrote that they “can only be described as drop-dead beautiful. Easily the most captivating works on the program, these songs of love and death are extraordinarily well written and insightful.”

Mr. Boyce was born in New York City in 1970. After performing with various punk rock bands in the greater New York metropolitan area, he attended Williams College, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics and Music, with honors, in 1992. He holds an MM from the University of Oregon, and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where, in 1999, he was awarded the Weiss Prize in Composition forTrois Complaintes. He has attended the Master-Class in Composition at the Aspen Festival, the Czech-American Summer Music Institute in Prague, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium. During the summers of 2000 and 2002, he was a resident fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He has studied with George Crumb, James Primosch, Kathryn Alexander, Robert Kyr, Judith Weir, Ladislav Kubik and Robert Suderburg.

Douglas Boyce is a founding member of the contemporary music ensemble counter)induction. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Music and Department Chair at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.