Of Tania Gabrielle French’s music the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, “French is a creator who melds clarity of design with emotional depth. Her writing is as concise as it is compelling.” From the Los Angeles Times, “One senses the composer’s technical mastery—the music abounds in unlabored counterpoint and imaginative, unforced sonorities—and her ability to say what she means and stop. Her music is at once accessible, engaging and smart.”
Used extensively in the Award-winning independent film "Glass" (K. Louise Middleton, director), her music has been performed by the Grammy-Award-winning Angeles String Quartet, Artis Quartet Vienna, New Hollywood String Quartet; Altenberg Trio Vienna; oboist Allan Vogel; NY Chamber Soloists, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra principals and NY’s St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble.
Tania's 2006 CD "Renewal" blends a touch of pop with classical and new age instrumentals.
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Biography
TANIA GABRIELLE FRENCH Composer
Tania Gabrielle French has enjoyed performances and radio broadcasts of her music on at least four continents to date featuring some of today’s finest artists. Critical acclaim for her works has been as consistently enthusiastic as audience response. Donald Rosenberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has written, “French is a creator who melds clarity of design with emotional depth. Her writing is as concise as it is compelling.” And from the Los Angeles Times, “One senses the composer’s technical mastery—the piece abounds in unlabored counterpoint and imaginative, unforced sonorities—and her ability to say what she means and stop. Her music is at once accessible, engaging and smart.”
Among the artists who have featured Ms. French’s music are the Artis Quartet Vienna, the New Hollywood, Da Vinci and Grammy-Award-winning Angeles String Quartets; cellists Bion Tsang, Jeffrey Solow, Ronald Leonard and Alexander Baillie; the Altenberg Trio Vienna; Tchaikovsky prize-winning pianist Stephen Prutsman; oboists Allan Vogel and Helen Jahren; principal players from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; and the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. Her music was used extensively in the award-winning independent film “Glass”.
For the 2006/07 season Tania has been commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music to compose her third string quartet performed by the Artist Quartet Vienna who will take the piece to the Library of Congress and the Musikverein in Vienna. New commissions include "Alice Meets the Queen" for the New York Chamber Soloists, "Bouquet" for viola and organ premiered in the Saarbrücken Basilika, Germany, and "Rhapsody based on themes from the film "Vertigo" premiered by the New Hollywood String Quartet at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.
French’s String Quartet No. 2 "Communications", praised by the Los Angeles Times for its “Haydnesque variety in a vivid contemporary language”, was taken on tour in Europe and North America by the prestigious Artis Quartet, who gave the European premiere at the Musikverein in Vienna. Tania was awarded top honors at the Oregon Bach Festival’s “Waging Peace through Singing” for her work "In Paradisum" scored for mixed chorus and strings.
Tania French’s critically acclaimed Four Illuminations for oboe and piano trio, commissioned by Allan Vogel, principal oboe of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, received its New York premiere by the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and is included on a CD for Centaur Records (CRC 2395) with four other chamber works, recorded by members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Piano Trio. Townhall Records has released a CD by the Haslop/Sanders Duo, featuring both her Harbors of Light and Three Landscapes for violin and guitar. The Guitar Foundation of America's Soundboard Magazine writes that these are "two substantial and engaging sets of pieces: haunting, evocative, strongly romantic with an impressionistic flavor."
Ms. French graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College where she studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Lewis Spratlan. She continued her studies with another Pulitzer Prize-winner, Bernard Rands, at the Aspen Music Festival’s Center for Compositional Studies, as well as with Oliver Knussen at the Aldeburgh Music Festival in England. Additional commissions have come from Chamber Music Palisades, the XXI International Viola Congress, the Guitar Foundation of America Festival, the Interlochen Arts Academy Choir, the “Music in Deerfield” series in Massachusetts, the California Association of Professional Music Teachers, the Corona del Mar Baroque Festival, Pacific Serenades (two commissions), the Union Theological Seminary Choir (New York), British cellist Alexander Baillie, the Smith College Glee Club, Bard College and noted arts patron Frank Taplin (former President of the Metropolitan Opera, Cleveland Orchestra and Vice Chairman of Lincoln Center).