Evan Fein

American composer and collaborative pianist Evan Fein was born in Cleveland, Ohio and currently resides in New York City, where he serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School Pre-College and Extension Divisions. His music has been performed by organizations including Musica Sacra, Opéra de Poche, The Albany Symphony, The United Nations Chamber Music Ensemble, Marble City Opera, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Juventas New Music Ensemble, and The New York Choreographic Institute. Fein was named winner of the American Prize for Composition in 2022, was awarded the 2014 Palmer Dixon Prize for Outstanding Composition, and is the recipient of honors from the ASCAP Foundation, Boston Metro Opera, and the American Scandinavian Society.  He additionally serves as Trustee for Artistic Initiatives for the Oratorio Society of New York.  He is the author of Inner Hearing, a sight singing method book published by Theodore Presser Company in 2020. 

Noted for his dramatic works, career highlights include serving as Composer-in-Residence (Artiste Associé) for the Paris-based chamber opera troupe Opéra de Poche, a post he held from 2012-2020.  Fein’s first opera, The Raven’s Kiss, inspired by Icelandic folk stories, was premiered in concert at Juilliard in 2011 and staged in Iceland in 2019. His second, L’Île des sept sœurs, a Southern Gothic tale, was given its premiere in Paris in 2013 by Opéra de Poche. City of Ashes, which follows the experiences of two German women in the days immediately following the fall of Berlin in 1945, was presented by Opéra de Poche in 2015 in Paris and again in Beijing in 2016; it was also the subject of Anne Georget’s 2018 documentary “Une saison à l’Opéra de Poche.” His major work for chorus and orchestra, Deborah, an oratorio based on the Book of Judges, was premiered by Musica Sacra at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in 2016 under the baton of Kent Tritle. 

His dissertation “The Ghosts of Versailles” by John Corigliano: An Evolutionary Study was completed in 2014. The first comprehensive study of the work commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera for its centennial, it is now available to scholars around the world. 

Evan Fein holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts and a Master of Music from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music. In addition, he pursued auxiliary studies at the Freie Universität Berlin (FUBiS) and L’École Normale de Musique de Paris (EAMA).  His primary teachers included Robert Beaser, Samuel Adler, Michel Merlet, and Margaret Brouwer and Gerardo Teissonnière. 

2023-24 Season Highlights include the release of Fein’s debut album Over/Under (Move Records), created in collaboration with Australian cellist Luke Severn.  Fein contributed a track to soprano Laura Dixon Strickling’s “40@40” project, which reached #1 on Billboard’s Top 100 Classical chart shortly after its fall 2023 release.  Fein’s continuing exploration of Nordic art song with baritone Colin Levin took the pair on a national tour of Iceland in June 2023, culminating in a residency at the acclaimed Við Djúpið Festival in Ísafjörður.  Their partnership will continue this season with a focus on Faroese song as part of Scandinavia House’s spring Faroe Islands festival.