Subito Music Names Brian Ciach as Subito Composer Fellow

Subito Music Names Brian Ciach as Subito Composer Fellow

“Following the recent success of our new partnership with the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, Subito Music Corporation is pleased to announce that Brian Ciach has been named our inaugural Subito Composer Fellow.”

“The Composer Institute,” notes Stephen Culbertson (Subito Music founder and CEO), “is a celebrated training program for young symphonic composers; and this year, it presented Brian’s work Collective Uncommon. Brian possesses a unique way of connecting with listeners through his use of orchestration and intense sonorities to create a visceral, musical montage. We created the Subito Composer Fellowship as a mentoring program so that composers could gain an in-depth understanding of the classical music publishing world. This isn’t generally part of the composition studies curriculum, and we look forward to working with Brian as he gains the insights and tools that relate the business of music to the art of creating music.” The Fellowship will provide professional promotional efforts for Ciach’s work, along with the opportunity for him to cultivate a practical knowledge of today’s publishing industry with on-site, hands-on training.

Collective Uncommon: Seven Orchestral Studies on Medical Oddities was inspired by Ciach’s visit to Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, a medical oddities branch of The College of Physicians which was founded in 1787. “The Mütter Museum,” Ciach explains, “contains a host of specimens of various odd afflictions…[and it’s] goal is to inspire research into the successful treatments and cures of various unusual disorders. I was fascinated by the collection and thought ‘What kind of piece would these relics inspire?’ I contacted museum personnel, who supported the project, but reminded me that the artifacts, as unusual and as macabre as they may seem, were once part of a living human being…[and] ‘there is a terrifying beauty in the spirits of those forced to endure these afflictions’. So I then set out to create a sensitive, chiaroscuro-balance between light and dark, macabre and humanitarian.” Written for Ciach’s doctoral dissertation at Indiana University, Collective Uncommon explores seven medical oddities using specific compositional genres. After its premiere, Bloomington Herald Times critic Peter Jacobi wrote, “Just listening brought moments of sheer excitement from how imaginatively the composer used his skills in orchestration to suggest chaos and furor, mystery and alarm, sympathy and wonder.”