Biography:

Thomas Schuttenhelm is an American composer and guitarist. His compositions are admired by performers for their exquisite craft and richness of style, and equally loved by audiences. His compositions can be heard on numerous recordings and have been performed throughout the country and abroad by such artists as: the Adaskin String Trio; the Alturas Duo (guitar and viola); classical guitarists: Eliot Fisk, Jason Vieaux, Christopher Ladd, Alex Walker, Daniel Salazar and the Hartford Festival Orchestra; pianist Paul Bisaccia, the Goldspiel-Provost Classical Guitar Duo, bassist Robert Black from Bang on A Can All-Stars, bassist Volkan Orhon, the Connecticut Trio, and the Connecticut Yankee Chorale. His piano music was featured on the PBS (WGBY- Springfield, WGBH-Boston) special "The Great American Piano." In addition to composing for some of America’s top soloists and ensembles, he is an experienced performer and scholar. He has performed electric guitar with the FIREWORKS Ensemble, a contemporary music ensemble; collaborated with the Wellspring Dance Company, a performance art company based in New York; toured with Purple Rock Productions, a diverse theater group, performing on guitar and balalaika; and was a composer-performer member of the Boston Public Works Contemporary Music Series held at Harvard University. He received his doctorate in Composition from The Hartt School where his principle teachers were Ingram Marshall, James Sellars, Steve Gryc, and Robert Carl. He has given lectures at Cardiff University (Wales, UK), University of Newcastle (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK), University of Sussex (UK), University of London (UK), and at the Mannheim Hochschule for Music. His publications include "The Selected Letters of Michael Tippett", published by Faber, and he is the contributing author to an edition on Fernando Sor. He has also authored numerous articles and reviews for the journal Soundboard. In addition, he has contributed to various BBC Radio programs. In 2007 he was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to the U.K. (London). In 2008 he was a British Music Studies fellow at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently completing a monograph for Cambridge University Press on 'Meaning and Identity in the Orchestral Music of Michael Tippett'.