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Steven Gellman |
 Biography |
Steven Gellman was born in Toronto in 1947. At an early age he showed great musical talent and received a strong and thorough foundation under the instruction of Dr. Samuel Dolin. Throughout his teenage years he appeared frequently as a pianist and composer, notably premiering his first Piano Concerto with the CBC Symphony at the age of 15.
In 1964 Steven Gellman was the first Canadian winner of the BMI award.
Further studies followed, at the Juilliard School in New York, with Vincent Persichetti and Luciano Berio, and later at the Paris Conservatoire with Olivier Messiaen.
In 1970 he won the UNESCO prize for “the best work by a composer under the age of 25”, for “Mythos” for flute and string quartet.
Since his return to Canada in 1976 Gellman has been a professor at the University of Ottawa. He has composed works in many genres including piano solo, chamber music , vocal, choral and many orchestral works. His music is distinguished by its great expressiveness and variety of means. In 1983 he joined the Toronto Symphony on their tour of Europe, which featured his overture “Awakening”. “Universe Symphony”,
for large orchestra and synthesizers brought further international recognition
and Steven Gellman was named Canadian Composer of the Year in 1987.
In the wake of Universe Symphony , Jon Kimura Parker commissioned Steven Gellman to compose a work for him; the result was : “Keyboard Triptych” for Piano/ Synthesizer with which Parker toured Canada, the U.S and Britain. Since then Gellman has composed a wide variety of works including “Love’s Garden” for Soprano and Orchestra, “Canticles of Saint Francis” for Choir and Orchestra (for the 150th anniversary of the Red Cross), a second Piano Concerto “Musica Eterna” for String Quartet, “Red Shoes” (for the S.M.C.Q.), “Chiaroscuro”, “Album for Piano” (published by Frederick Harris Co.), a Sonata for Cello and Piano, the “Jaya Overture” (for the N.A.C.O.), and “Fanfare for the New Millennium”, among others.
Steven Gellman lives in Ottawa with his wife , Cheryl, a painter. They have two grown children, Dana and Misha.
2003
