Frank Felice (born October 13, 1961 in Great Falls, Montana) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and associate professor of composition, theory, and electronic music in the Jordan College of Arts at Butler University.[1]
Frank Felice (born October 13, 1961 in Great Falls, Montana) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and associate professor of composition, theory, and electronic music in the Jordan College of Arts at Butler University.[1]
Felice grew up in Hamilton, Montana, playing piano, guitar, and double bass in a variety of settings, including several rock bands.
He attended Concordia College (Moorhead), the University of Colorado, and Butler University. Felice received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1998.
Felice has studied composition under Dominick Argento, Judith Lang Zaimont, Luiz Gonzalez, James Day, Michael Schelle, and Daniel Breedon. He describes himself as "an eclectic composer who writes with a postmodern mischievousness: pieces can be comedic/ironic, simple/complex, or humble/reverent."[2]
He is member of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, the American Composers Forum, the American Music Center, The Society of Composers Inc., and the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers.[3]
Felice's music has been performed in the U.S., Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, the Philippines, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.
Commissions have come with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Omaha Symphony, the Indiana Arts Commission, The Indiana Repertory Theatre, Butler University, Dance Kaleidoscope, the Butler University Arts Festival, Music Teachers National Association, the Wyoming State Arts Board, the Indianapolis Youth Symphony, Kappa Kappa Psi/Tau Beta Sigma, any many private sources. He also serves as an adjudicator and judge for a variety of composition contests each year, throughout the United States, as well as lecturing around the Midwest on new music.[4]
Felice directs the annual Electronic Music Festival, which has taken place at Butler University since 2002.[5] Many of his electronic compositions were recorded on Sidewalk Music: Electronic and Electro-Acoustic Music.[6]
Felice compares composing music to cooking, another of his passions. He says that both involve problem-solving. "It's how you put the ingredients together. Are they going to work?" Of the creative process, Felice says, "Everyone who writes, everyone who composes really is involved with some creation. We echo a little bit of what God did in the very beginning."[7]
Felice inspires his students to be creative and explore their boundaries. He "inspires student composers at Butler University every day to follow through with unique music composition concepts."[8] "Felice's philosophy lends itself nicely to his career as a music educator. Rejecting the Romantic notion of artistic genius, he asserts that, for him, composing is more about form and craft than inspiration and epiphany."[9]
Felice has served as composer-in-residence with the Symphony of Southeast Texas and Eastern Wyoming College.
Felice has been commissioned twice to write pieces for Dance Kaleidoscope. "Earthworks" (2005) is a suite of electronic music, choreographed by David Hochoy, and performed as part of The Four Elements.[10] "It is a piece that is rich in texture and sonorities and was actually a challenge to choreograph to when I first heard it. It contains some beautifully evocative sections where the combinations of electronic and classical instruments provide a powerful backdrop for the dancers as they create many different landscapes and scenarios."[11] "Of Rivals and Lovers: Ten Lines from a Poet's Past" was written for Dance Kaleidoscope's Remembrance of Things Past performance in 2012.[12]
Another commission was by the Butler University Department of Dance for a ballet entitled The Willow Maiden, which premiered in 2003. Originally, his ballet was to tell the story of Beren and Lúthien, from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.[13] After permission from the Tolkien Estate could not be obtained, Ellen Denham wrote a new story, with new mythological elements, to some of Felice's existing music, and The Willow Maiden was successfully premiered in April, 2003.