Frank Ticheli
Premiere composer and conductor
Frank Ticheli's music has been described as being “optimistic and thoughtful" (Los Angeles Times), “lean and muscular" (New York Times), “brilliantly effective" (Miami Herald) and “powerful, deeply felt crafted with impressive flair and an ear for striking instrumental colors" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). Ticheli is Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, where he taught for 32 years (1991-2023). From 1991 to 1998, Ticheli was Composer in Residence of the Pacific Symphony and composed numerous works for that orchestra.
Frank Ticheli's orchestral works have received considerable recognition in the U.S. and abroad. Orchestral performances have come from the Philadelphia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Dallas Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, the radio orchestras of Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Saarbruecken, and Austria, and the orchestras of Austin, Bridgeport, Charlotte, Colorado, Haddonfield, Harrisburg, Hong Kong, Jacksonville, Lansing, Long Island, Louisville, Lubbock, Memphis, Nashville, Omaha, Phoenix, Portland, Richmond, San Antonio, San Jose, Wichita Falls, and others.
Ticheli is well known for his works for concert band, many of which have become standards in the repertoire. In addition to composing, he has appeared as guest conductor of his music at Carnegie Hall, at many American universities and music festivals, and in cities throughout the world, including Schladming (Austria), Beijing and Shanghai, London and Manchester, Singapore, Rome, Sydney, and numerous cities in Korea and Japan.
Frank Ticheli is the recipient of a 2012 “Arts and Letters Award" from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, his third award from that prestigious organization. He is a two-time winner of the National Band Association’s William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest. Other awards include the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize and First Prize awards in the Texas Sesquicentennial Orchestral Composition Competition, Britten-on-the-Bay Choral Composition Contest, and Virginia CBDNA Symposium for New Band Music.
In 2018, Ticheli received the University of Michigan Alumni Society’s highest honor, the Hall of Fame Award, in recognition for his career as a composer. He was also awarded national honorary membership to Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, "bestowed to individuals who have significantly contributed to the cause of music in America," and the A. Austin Harding Award by the American School Band Directors Association, “given to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the school band movement in America." At USC, he has received the Dean's Award for Professional Achievement, and the Virginia Ramo Award “in recognition of outstanding contribution to music and education, to the USC Thornton School of Music and University of Southern California, and to Humanity.”
Frank Ticheli’s works are published by Manhattan Beach, Southern, Hinshaw, and Encore Music, and are recorded on the labels of Albany, Chandos, Clarion, Equilibrium, Klavier, Koch International, Mark, Naxos, Reference, and Decca Classics. For more information, please visit the composer’s website: www.FrankTicheli.com
Reviews
SYMPHONY NO. 2 (21 min.)
“...one of the most interesting and attractive composers on the scene today. Ticheli’s music is
immediately accessible, crafted with impressive flair and an ear for striking instrumental colors. There
is also huge energetic impetus and, perhaps most impressively, a hopeful quality and optimism. That
growing confidence achieves full-metal force in the finale, “Apollo Unleashed”...There are few
composers around who can carry off this kind of uninhibited, high-flying and intensely rhythmic music
as well as Ticheli...
Lawrence A. Johnson, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, October 4, 2004
SYMPHONY NO. 1, for orchestra (30 min.)
Ticheli’s symphony is a powerful, deeply felt work, crafted with imagination, flair and melodic
warmth...Ticheli’s symphony is a very impressive work, and Friday night’s performance was an
unalloyed triumph.
Lawrence Johnson, South Florida Sun-Sentinal, October 20, 2001
Frank Ticheli’s First Symphony put a rousing period to Festival Miami... Brilliantly effective in four
close-knit movements, it echoes lonely Copland in its brisk striding from the brassy optimism of youth,
through contemplation and loss of innocence to prayer.
James Roos, Miami Herald, October 1, 2001
In the final movement, “Prayer”, a tenor soloist sings a text from a poem by Ticheli that, with its longing
for peace, solace and reconciliation, has, if anything, gained in resonance and iompact in the intervening
two years since first heard...Ticheli’s symphony is the main attraction here, one of the more impressive
American works in the genre of recent years.
Gramophone Awards 2003 Issue
BLUE SHADES, for orchestra (10 min.)
The concert opened with a pleasant surprise, a one-movement hurricane of sound by Frank Ticheli called
Blue Shades. True to its name, the piece incorporates many jazz elements but lies comfortably in the
mainstream of accessible modern classical music. It revels in a pulsing rhythm reminiscent of John Adams
that summons images of a busy and flamboyant street.
Jack Robinson, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9, 2000
Using blues chords, big band licks and lots of syncopation, Ticheli created a rare work that successfully
merged jazz and symphony orchestra...Classical music boring and dull? The Lansing Symphony proved
that stereotype wrong.
Ken Glickman, Lansing State Journal, March 28, 2004
AN AMERICAN DREAM, a symphony of songs for soprano and orchestra (39 min.)
...a magnificent expression of our time...The Detroit Symphony’s eastern U.S. premiere of Ticheli’s new
song-cycle is an object lesson in what an infusion of new blood should do for any arts organization. DSO
patrons...responded to Ticheli’s touching, unsettling Dream with a ripping ovation...Classical music
seemed as full of promise as the new century at hand.
Lawrence B. Johnson, Detroit News
...immediately accessible but layered with delicate textures of meaning, like fine lace draped over a
beautiful face. Ticheli’s symphony, at 38 minutes, seems to fly by. The final movement is like a peaceful
coda, the imagery one of flying above the earth’s surface, with themes of transcendence. The work ends
quietly, with a radiant chord in the strings, and it’s difficult not to feel uplifted by the experience.
Scott Duncan, Orange County Register
RADIANT VOICES, a fantasy for orchestra (20 min.)
...he shows an instinctive feel for the orchestra that is utterly idiomatic...This is a young composer to
watch. The Pacific Symphony should be congratulated on its enlightened decision to actively promote a
composer in residence, and to have chosen this composer.
Robert Carl, Fanfare Magazine
...a stunning work...Ticheli’s “fantasy for orchestra” strikes a balance between substance and accessibility,
something that few modern symphonists have been able to manage. I can’t think of too many other works
that are so welcoming on first hearing, yet careful not to insult intelligence with tedium or simplicity.
Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer
Ticheli’s Radiant Voices was a resounding success...It highlighted the composer’s exemplary command of
the orchestral medium, as well as the orchestra’s finest virtuosities. Ticheli’s resourceful handling of
orchestration and his sure sense of dramatic pacing lift Radiant Voices to thrilling heights...
Philip Collins, San Jose Metro
But the orchestra really had its time in the sun in the first half of the concert, with Frank Ticheli’s Radiant
Voices... The orchestra’s best piece of the evening was Ticheli’s Radiant Voices, a composition inspired
by the 1992 Los Angeles riots...The WFSO very much commanded this demanding work with such
passion, verver and energy, particularly in the big ending...
Lana Sweeten-Shults, Times Record News, October 4, 2010
PLAYING WITH FIRE, a concerto for seven-piece jazz band and orchestra (25 min.)
Frank Ticheli is one of those all-round American composers whose varied abilities must stir jealous
impulses in those who hoe narrower furrows: he writes with equal fluency for symphony orchestra, band
and chorus, and happily smidges the stylistic boundaries between musical traditions. His Playing With Fire,
for example, is the most successful integration of jazz and classical styles I know – and it boils with energy.
Martin Anderson, The Classical Review, September, 2011
Conventional wisdom has it that a symphony orchestra can swing about as well as a chicken can fly. Well,
the chickens soared last night when the San Antonio Symphony under Christopher Wilkens teamed with
the Jim Cullum Jazz Band in a new concerto by Ticheli...
Mike Greenberg, San Antonio Express
The piece is hot. Throughout the three movements, there was an almost palpable sense of jamming between
the two ensembles with enormous mutual respect. It was a swinging interplay that brought intermittent
shouts and applause from a wildly appreciative audience.
Diane Windeler, San Antonio Light
CONCERTO FOR TRUMPET AND ORCHESTRA (1990)
...explodes with energy...The craftsmanship is first-rate, from the beautiful fit of the counterpoint to the
expertly deployed orchestration. Yet this work is not classical in its bones; it’s much more free-wheeling,
raucous, open-ended—American. The overflow crowd in Ruth Taylor Concert Hall responded with whoops
and an extended ovation.
Mike Greenberg, San Antonio Express
IMAGES OF A STORM (10 min.)
Lean and muscular are the adjectives for this one-movement piece, and above all, active, in motion. Images
of a Storm has a dark energy that does not keep the listener waiting.
Bernard Holland, The New York Times