Donald Steven
Donald Steven is a Canadian-American composer, music educator, and academic administrator. An associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre, he won a BMI Student Composer Award in 1970, the Canadian Federation of University Women's Golden Jubilee Creative Arts Award in 1972, the 1987 Juno Award for Classical Composition of the Year and the 1991 Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. His musical compositions are characterized by their emphasis on instrumental colour and atmosphere. Perhaps his most well known piece is his Illusions for solo cello, which has been widely performed in concert and on television and radio broadcasts.
Life and career
Born in Montreal, he attended Selwyn House School, followed by Ashbury College. He began his career performing and arranging folk and rock music in the 1960s before pursuing professional studies in music. In 1968 he entered McGill University where he was a music composition student of Bruce Mather. After graduating from McGill with a Bachelor of Music in 1972, he entered the graduate music program at Princeton University where he studied under Milton Babbitt, earning a Master of Fine Arts in 1974. He later earned a Doctor of Philosophy from Princeton.In 1975, Steven joined the Faculty of Music at McGill University, ultimately becoming the head of the performance department in 1986. He taught music composition at the school until 1992 and was involved in the modernization of McGill's studio for electronic music and the creation of the computer music studios. In 1992, he became dean of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College and, subsequently in 1997, founding dean of the College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. He has since worked in senior administration at the State University of New York and The Citadel, and retired as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Rider University in 2013. He is also a former faculty member of the University of Western Ontario.
Steven's works have been performed throughout the world, including the World Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music and the World Cello Congress. He has received numerous commissions, including from Maureen Forrester, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Bertram Turetzky, Robert Riseling, and Alvaro Pierri, and from La Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Répercussion, the Pierrot Ensemble, the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, New Music Concerts and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.