Steven Mackey b.14 February 1956, Frankfurt, Germany

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Steven Mackey was born in 1956 to American parents stationed in Frankfurt Germany. His first musical passion was playing the electric guitar in rock bands based in northern California. He later discovered concert music and has composed for orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance and opera. He regularly performs his own work, including two electric guitar concertos as well as numerous solo and chamber works and is also active as an improvising musician.

As a composer, Mackey has been honored by numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, two awards from the Kennedy Center for the performing arts, the Stoeger Prize for Chamber Music by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and in 2000 the Miami performing arts center acknowledged his contributions to orchestral music with a special career achievement award. His Indigenous Instruments was selected to represent the U.S. at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1990. Mackey was in residence at Tanglewood in the summer of 2006 and will be co-composer in residence with Christopher Rouse at the 2007 Aspen Music Festival. He has, in the past, been composer-in-residence at at numerous universities and festivals including Yellow Barn, Imagine Festival, Bennington and others. He was featured at the 2000 American Mavericks Festival presented by the San Francisco Symphony and the 2003 Holland festival in Amsterdam. Zankel at Carnegie Hall presented a portrait concert of his work on their "Making Music" series, in 2006.

Among his commissions are works for the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Kronos Quartet, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Fromm Foundation, the Brentano String Quartet, the Borromeo String Quartet, Fred Sherry, Dawn Upshaw, the Dutch Radio Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, Leila Josefowicz and many others. Recent premieres include the chamber version of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral with the Prism Saxophone Quartet (2004), the orchestra version of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and Prism Quartet (2005), Time Release for timpani and orchestra with percussionist Colin Currie (2005), Turn the Key with the New World Symphony led by Michael Tilson Thomas (2006), Measures of Turbulence for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Guitar Ensemble with David Tanenbaum (2007), and Ground Swell for viola and ensemble with the Aspen Music Festival (2007). Also in 2007, Dreamhouse received its U.S. premiere with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Rinde Eckert, and Synergy Vocals led by Gil Rose, and Colin Currie performed the U.S. and New York premieres of Time Release with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra led by Marin Alsop in Baltimore and at Carnegie Hall. In October 2008, Leila Josefowicz performed the world premiere of Mackey's violin concerto Beautiful Passing with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra before performing the U.S. premiere with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in November. 

His monodrama – Ravenshead – for tenor/actor (Rinde Eckert) and electro-acoustic band/ensemble (The Paul Dresher Ensemble), has been performed nearly one hundred times and is available on a min/max CD. In a year-end wrap up of cultural events, USA today crowned the work the "Best New Opera of 1998".  Written for Rinde Eckert and eighth blackbird, Mackey's new work Slide (2008-09), a continuation of Ravenshead, is set to receive it's world premiere during the Ojai Music Festival in June 2009.

Available discs of Mackey’s work include "Lost and Found": Mackey performing his own solo electric guitar music, released by Bridge records in 1996; "Tuck and Roll": Michael Tilson Thomas conducts orchestral music of Steven Mackey, released in 2001 by BMG/RCA Red Seal; "String Theory": string Quartets and string quartets plus with the Brentano String Quartet released in 2003 on Albany Records; "Heavy Light": Mosaic plays mixed chamber ensemble music, released in 2004 by New World Records; "Banana/Dump Truck: concerti for cello and electric guitar released in 2005 on Albany records and "Interior Design": featuring Curtis Macomber in several violin works. "Tuck and Roll," "Interior Design" and "Lost and Found" all made several year-end top ten lists including the New York Times. Individual pieces are included on numerous collections on Nonesuch, BMG/Catalyst, CRI, Newport Classics, and many other labels.

As a guitarist he has performed his own music with the Kronos Quartet, the Arditti Quartet, Brentano Quartet, New World Symphony, Dutch Radio Symphony, The London Sinfonietta, Nexttime Ensemble (Parma), Psappha (Manchester), Joey Baron, Fred Sherry and others.

Mackey is currently Professor of Music at Princeton University where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. He teaches composition, theory, twentieth century music, improvisation and a variety of special topics. As co-director of the Composers Ensemble at Princeton he coaches and conducts new work by student composers as well as twentieth century classics. In 1991, he was awarded the first-ever Distinguished Teaching Award from Princeton University.

January 2009

Mackey’s web address is www.stevenmackey.com. His music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.