David Froom


David Froom is an American composer and college professor. Froom has taught at the University of Utah, the Peabody Institute and the University of Maryland, College Park. He has been on the faculty at St. Mary's College of Maryland since 1989. He has received awards and honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters,, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the Koussevitzky Foundation of the Library of Congress, the Barlow Foundation, and is a five-time recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the State of Maryland.

Early life

Froom was born in 1951 in California. After playing rock music in a band with guitarist Gary Pihl and his brother Mitchell Froom, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley. As a graduate student, he studied under William Kraft, Humphrey Searle and Robert Linn at the University of Southern California, earning a Master of Music Composition degree in 1978. In 1984, he earned a D.M.A. degree in Composition from the Columbia University, where he studied with Mario Davidovsky and Chou Wen-chung. He studied also with Alexander Goehr at Cambridge University on a Fulbright grant.

Composer

Froom has written music for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra, with and without voice. His compositions have been widely performed throughout the United States and Canada, as well as England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Cyprus, China, New Zealand, and Australia.
His music has been described as “intensely dramatic yet deeply formal,” "intellectually engaging, explosive with imagination and with a satisfying visceral power," balancing “diatonic pastoralism with acerbic angularity, Stravinskian rhythmic urgency with lyrical counterpoint.” Among his most critically acclaimed works are "Circling," Sonata for Solo Violin, 2nd Piano Trio, and Amichai Songs. Among his most frequently performed music is his saxophone music, which includes a saxophone quartet, "Flying High" for solo alto saxophone, and "Arirang Variations" for alto saxophone, bassoon, and piano. All of his works, are published by the American Composers Alliance.
Froom's work has, since 1991, appeared regularly on the concerts of the 21st Century Consort, the new music group-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution. They have premiered and recorded many of his works.

Awards

Froom's awards include the following:

Large Ensemble works