Brian T. Field
Brian T. Field (born December 1, 1967) is an American composer of music for chamber groups, choirs and orchestras. He was also an adjunct professor of music at Columbia University from 1995 to 1997, Seton Hall University in 1997, and American University in 2019. Life. Brian Field was raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Toledo, Ohio beginning his musical training at age eight; his first serious compositional efforts at age sixteen. He received his undergraduate degree from Connecticut College, where he was a student of Noel Zahler, graduating Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. At Connecticut he received  the Rosemary Park Fellowship and was awarded the Mahan Music Prize for Highest Attainment in Music He earned a M.M. in composition at the Juilliard School in New York, where he was a student of Milton Babbitt, subsequently earning his doctorate in composition as a President's Fellow at Columbia University as a student of Mario Davidovsky and George Edwards. His doctoral composition and analysis was a work for violoncello quartet, "Metamorphoses Messianiques". Field's self-described musical style is an "eclectic fusion of lyricism and driving rhythm that brings together elements of post-romanticism, minimalism and jazz." Reviews & Recognition . First public reviews of Field's work emerged with the release of his String Quartet #1 (2019) on a compilation of string quartets performed by the New York based Sirius Quartet. "Gramophone" took note of the work, and wrote that "[Field’s] First Quartet makes me want to hear more. Its four very rhythmic movements are models of concision, real dialogues between the four musicians." The "American Record Guide" took particular focus on the second, lyrical movement of the quartet, commenting that "Field's Quartet #1 has a true gem of a second movement: here we get that delicious sense  of longing, of needing, as the strings climb higher and higher on their fingerboards: almost like they're attempting to touch heaven." In 2021, Field released a compilation of his vocal music on the Navona label, which attracted additional attention once again from "Gramophone", that wrote "Field’s music has a winning melodic flow and harmonic translucency that make it easy to appreciate." "Fanfare Magazine" further commented that "Field’s versatility is both striking and impressive and stretches tonality to and beyond its limits, but always in a soaring, lyrical manner.” The music monthly "The Whole Note" effused that the  recording is "an important disc, no doubt, often dripping with sardonicism and bitterness, shrouded in the music’s frequent dissonance. Gorgeous songs complemented by great choral and solo singing, however, triumph over these feelings, in a program selected and sequenced with uncommon care, with Field drawing on his consummate musicianship fueled by hopefulness."