Don Freund

Don Freund is an internationally recognized composer with works ranging from solo, chamber, and orchestral music to pieces involving live performances with electronic instruments, music for dance, and large theatre works. He has been described as “a composer thoughtful in approach and imaginative in style” (Washington Post), whose music is “exciting, amusing, disturbing, beautiful, and always fascinating” (Music and Musicians, London). Many of Freund’s works are available on commercial CD. The recipient of numerous awards and commissions including two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim fellowship, he has served as guest composer at a vast array of universities and music festivals, and presented master classes throughout Europe and Asia.

Freund is also active as a pianist, conductor, and lecturer. As a festival coordinator, he has programmed over a thousand new American works; he has been conductor or pianist in the performance of some two hundred new pieces, usually in collaboration with the composer. A Professor of Composition at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music since 1992, teaching composition continues to be a major component of Freund’s career. His students from 40 years of teaching continue to win an impressive array of awards and recognitions. Freund’s piano concert repertoire extends from new music to complete performances of Bach’s WTC Book I and his own pianistic realizations of Machaut. He has performed his Earthdance Concerto with numerous university wind ensembles.