Paul Osterfield

Composer Paul Osterfield was born in Nashville TN in 1973. Spending his formative years in Northeast Ohio, he composed and performed as a cellist throughout middle school and high school, in addition to studying violin, piano, and conducting. His early efforts as a composer were recognized in 1990, when the United States Copyright Office and the Library of Congress awarded Osterfield first prize in their Young Creators’ Contest. The following year, that winning work was performed by the Cleveland Orchestra on their Family Key Concert Series.

Since then, Osterfield’s compositions have continued to receive performances both internationally and throughout the United States and abroad. Osterfield has been a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony, and has won Middle Tennessee State University’s Outstanding Creative Arts Faculty Award, an Individual Artist Grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission, and awards from BMI, ASCAP, and the National Federation of Music Clubs. Osterfield’s works are available on the Albany, Equilibrium, Navona, and Ravello labels.

Also maintaining an active career as an educator, Osterfield is Professor of Music at Middle Tennessee State University, where he teaches music composition and theory. He has given composition seminars and master classes at colleges and universities throughout the southern United States. Having earned degrees from Cornell University (D.M.A.), Indiana University (M.M.), and the Cleveland Institute of Music (B.M.), Paul Osterfield’s primary composition teachers have been Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Eugene O’Brien, Frederick Fox, and Donald Erb.