ANTHONY R. GREEN, COMPOSER
photo credit: Michel Marang
The creative output of Anthony R. Green (composer, performer, social justice artist) includes musical and visual creations, interpretations of original works or works in the repertoire, collaborations, educational outreach, and more. Behind all of his artistic endeavors are the ideals of equality and freedom, which manifest themselves in diverse ways in a composition, a performance, a collaboration, or social justice work.
As a composer, his works have been presented in over 20 countries by Gabriela Díaz (violin), Wendy Richman (viola), Ashleigh Gordon (viola), Gregory Williams (viola), Hayk Melikyan (piano), Eunmi Ko (piano), Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano), ALEA III (conducted by Gunther Schuller), The Playground Ensemble, Transient Canvas, Ossia New Music Ensemble, Access Contemporary Music, counter)induction, BLY, NOISE-BRIDGE, Tenth Intervention, Chartreuse, and Alarm Will Sound, to name a few. He has received commissions from Community Music Works, Make Music Boston, Celebrity Series Boston, the Robert McCormick Percussion Group, and various soloists and ensembles. He has been a resident artist at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts (Nebraska), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Escape to Create (Florida), Visby International Centre for Composers (Sweden), Space/Time (Scotland), atelier:performance (Germany), and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Nebraska). As a performer, he has appeared at venues in the US, Cyprus, France, the Netherlands, the UK, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, and South Korea, working with student and emerging composers, as well as established composers such as David Liptak, Renée C. Baker, Steve Reich, and George Crumb.
Through music and entrepreneurship, Green comments on many issues related to social justice, including immigration (Earned – narrator & double string quartet), civil rights (Dona Nobis Veritatem – soprano, viola, & piano), the historical links between slavery and current racial injustice in the US (Oh, Freedom! – spoken word, voice, flute, viola, cello; Almost Over – sax quartet), the contributions of targeted and/or minority groups to humanity (A Single Voice: Solitary, Unified – solo alto sax & fixed media), and more. His ongoing opera-project Alex in Transition highlights the life of Alex – a trans woman – and her journey to truth and authentic living. This opera has been featured in the Ft. Worth Opera Frontiers Festival, presented by New Fangled Opera and One Ounce Opera, and performed in a concert production at the Israel Conservatory of Music in Tel Aviv. Green’s most important social justice work has been with Castle of our Skins, a concert and education series organization dedicated to celebrating Black artistry through music. Co-founder, associate artistic director, and composer-in-residence, his work with Castle of our Skins has included concert/workshop curation and development, community outreach, lecturing about the history and politics concerning Black composers of Classical music, and more.
His main composition teachers have been Theodore Antoniou, Lee Hyla, and Robert Cogan, and he has participated in masterclasses with Laura Schwendinger, Paquito D’Rivera, and the JACK Quartet. His solo and colaborative work has been recognized by grants from Meet the Composer, the Argosy Foundation, New Music USA, and the American Composers Forum as a McKnight Visiting Composer. He is currently a fellow at the Berlin University of the Arts.