Michael Patrick Coyle

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Michael Patrick Coyle is an American classical composer and arranger.

Coyle is a composer/arranger resident in Minneapolis, and also the executive producer for an independent, multi-media production company based in New York City, Munich, and Warsaw. He is the former composer-in-residence for the Manhattan Performance Group and the Cottage Theater in New York City, and was the editor of Stagebill magazine at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. His works have been featured on television, film, and stage, and in art installations in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Madison, Wisconsin.

He works in a wide variety of styles, but primarily enjoys writing for instrumental chamber ensembles and orchestra. His works combine traditional and extended harmony balanced with sections of harmonic ambiguity and atonality. He believes that the combination of tonality and atonality is critical to the appreciation of both. By his own admission, he is obsessed with novel variation in both tone color and texture. He has been recognized as an adept and imaginative orchestrator. He works with both acoustic and electronic instruments in order to have access to as wide a palette of raw sound as possible. His greatest musical influences and mentors have been: Robert Bailey, James Hepokoski, Daniel Pinkham, Jan Gorbaty, Dominic Argento, and Henry Schmidt.[1]

In addition to music, Coyle has an avid interest in science and material experimentation and in the mid-1980s became Production Manager for McHugh-Rollins Associates, a properties and special effects design firm in New York City. While in that position he oversaw the special effects production of such large Broadway shows as The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables and implemented the effects for Ingmar Bergman's production of Hamlet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as many other stage productions and films.[1]

Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, Coyle did his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music and graduate work at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Institute of Audio Research, New York University, and the University of Minnesota. He plays the piano, trombone, and a wide variety of electronic instruments, and occasionally performs in Minneapolis on the piano and trombone.[1]

Coyle is an active member of the American Composers Forum.

Selected works[edit]

  • On the Departure of a Beloved Friend - for French horn choir and tuba. Written in memoriam Larry Jonas. Performed by the Eastman Horn Choir, March 26, 2017. Previously performed at the University of New Mexico, and the International Horn Society Symposium, 2016.
  • Jesus Blue - for large orchestra
  • DX - for viola, clarinet, trombone, string bass, and percussion [1]
  • Intervals I - for small wind ensemble, piano, and percussion [2]
  • Intervals II - for piano, violin, and viola [3]
  • Small Village Large Tree - for chamber orchestra [4]
  • Bruckneurosis - for large orchestra [5]
  • The Barking Wizards of Middleview - for chamber orchestra [6]
  • Trio for violin, viola, and piano [7]
  • Four Divas and one Climax, for cello quartet
  • Tänzchen für Vier - for violin, clarinet, piano, marimba and vibes - winner of the annual Zeitgeist/American Composers Forum competition, premiered by Zeitgeist, St. Paul, Minnesota

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Member Bio: Michael P. Coyle". American Composers Forum. July 2005. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-07-14.

External links[edit]