Gregory Spears is an American composer of instrumental and operatic works that blend aspects of romanticism, minimalism, and early music. Among his best known works are the operas Fellow Travelers and Paul's Case, as well as his Requiem.
Spears' music often draws on earlier musical styles processed through contemporary minimalist techniques. The New York Times's Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim described his opera Fellow Travelers: "But what makes Fellow Travelers such a satisfying operatic experience is the old-fashioned combination of a swift-flowing and deft libretto and gorgeous music." Alex Ross in The New Yorker elaborates: "The harmony is largely tonal, but it is anti-Romantic in effect, tending instead toward a decorous neo-Baroque sensibility. Voices and instruments often perform courtly pirouettes against sustained chords and even pulses. The atmosphere is one of hushed disclosure: the music implies more than it says. What emerges is a potently ambiguous sound world that conveys human warmth and chill in equal measure. Above all, it is a transparent medium in which singing actors can speak instead of shout." Heidi Waleson described Spears' compositional style in her Wall Street Journal review of the opera O Columbia: "Mr. Spears writes brilliantly for vocal ensembles. Starting with neoclassical-style clarity, he builds textured, complex musical structures that sound old and new at the same time, and his skillful text settings use minimalist-like repetition to give Mr. Vavrek's pointed, thoughtful words even more power and emotional specificity." Steve Smith, in his New York Times review of the opera Paul's Case, based on the Willa Cathershort storyof the same title, described the score: "Mr. Spears's elegantly spare music, with its gamelan-redolent modes and clockwork repetitions, Baroque vocal fillips, intricately woven ensembles and dramatically placed dissonances, further infuses the tale with a sense of ritual and inevitability." David Patrick Stearns, in his Philadelphia Inquirer review of Spears' Requiem, described his musical influences: "Spears intersperses the swan myth with the requiem text, much of it reflecting lyrical Baltic influences of Arvo Pärt, but with a young composer's restlessness. The swan's song is speculatively re-created with otherworldly vocal ornaments. The piece also contains counterpoint that echoes 16th-century madrigals as well as a modern sense of theatrical timing that keeps your ears on edge until the last note." Fellow Travelers, adapted by Greg Pierce from the novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon, premiered at Cincinnati Opera on June 17, 2016. It received positive notices in Opera News, The New York Times, and parterre box.
