Stephen Blumberg

Stephen Blumberg is a composer whose music has been performed throughout the United States and internationally by soloists including two-time GRAMMY-nominated harpsichordist Jory Vinikour, pianist Sarah Cahill, pianist Jeffrey Jacob, flutist Laurel Zucker, and percussionist Daniel Kennedy, and by ensembles including the Cygnus Ensemble, Arditti String Quartet, the Cassatt String Quartet, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, Empyrean Ensemble, Duo Diorama, Eight Strings & a Whistle, Vox-n-Plux, Octagon, Music Now, Citywater, the California Youth Symphony, and the Camellia Symphony Orchestra. His music has been described as “evocatively, colorfully scored…rich, sinuous” (San Francisco Classical Voice); “a deftly-shaped score of streamlined beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle); and “a superb ride…powerful” (Sacramento Bee). Blumberg has received numerous awards including the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2004), and the George Ladd Prix de Paris Fellowship (1991-93); he has been the recipient of a MetLife Creative Connections Grant from the Meet The Composer Foundation (2009), and a Subito Grant from the American Composers Forum (2005). Scrabble, for marimba solo, was published by Edition Peters in 2013. His piece, Gyre, appears on Jory Vinikour’s Toccatas: Modern American Music for Harpsichord, which was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2015. Numina was recorded by Jeffrey Jacob on his CD Contemporary Eclectic Music for the Piano, volume 14 released on the New Ariel label in 2018. Night Sky for violin and piano was recorded by Duo Diorama and released in 2019. Blumberg is Professor of Composition and Music Theory at California State University, Sacramento, where he served as Co-Director or Artistic Director of the Festival of New American Music from 2000 through 2018. He is currently serving as Director of the School of Music at Sacramento State since Fall 2020.