David Froom, professor of music at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, has a new release on Bridge Records called “Song and Dance,” performed by the 21st Century Consort, led by Christopher Kendall.
Froom is an award-winning composer. In 2006, the American Academy of Arts and Letters presented him with its Academy Award, and in 2007 he was designated Distinguished Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association. The Consort is the Smithsonian Institution’s new-music group-in-residence. This collection of Froom’s music is available on CD from Bridge Records, and also from Amazon, iTunes, and, within a few months, the Naxos Music Library. Froom composed and produced the collection.
Froom’s music has recently been getting international notice. During the past few years his compositions have been performed or recorded by performance groups in Austria, Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Holland, and China.
“This new recording,” said Froom of “Song and Dance,” “feels very much like an important career milestone. It represents some of my best work from the last ten years.” Of his recording relationship with the 21st Century Consort, he said: “This recording is a celebration of my 17-year relationship with one of the greatest new music groups in the United States.”
Froom joined the St. Mary’s College of Maryland faculty in 1989. He studied composition at University of California-Berkeley, University of Southern California, and Columbia University. He also studied under a Fulbright grant at Cambridge University.
In 2003, Froom earned a Guggenheim fellowship in composition. That same year he won his fourth Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. In 2004, he earned a commission from the Barlow Foundation at Brigham Young University and his second commission from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University.