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Critics have called Howard Fredrics' music both "slashingly discordant" ( LA Times ) and "marvellously gothic" ( Array ). His music has also been called "bizarre and gorgeous" (Shela Xoregos, choreographer/director). The impact of his sound design for the feature film, Transatlantic Coffee has been reviewed as follows:
"Music and sound itself is a
character in the film, provoking
or supporting Alex’s anxieties and
melancholy that exists, or even
replacing visuals with sounds to
link the visual symbol when absent."
--Aaron Weiss, Cinema Funk
In addition to electroacoustic music, much of Howard Fredrics' creative output consists of solo, chamber and orchestral works, opera and art song, music and sound design for the theatre, music and sound design for film/TV, music and sound design for computer games, music for multimedia installation, and music for dance. His work has involved long-standing collaborative relationships with poets, Elsa Grave and Charles Bukowski, as well as with author/librettist, Jacob Sager Weinstein and director, Jessica Kubzansky.
Over the years, Howard Fredrics has become most well known for his text-sound compositions, electroacoustic works (often with instruments and/or voices) based on readings of poetry, which are musicalized through the use of specialized computer software and hardware.
As he has also written music for dance, film, and the theatre, it is only natural that he has, in recent years, combined his theatrical, movement and image-based musical interests and experience with what clearly forms the bulk of his output, namely works involving the human voice, either spoken and/or sung. The result of this combination of forces has been his work on a multimedia opera, The Whitechapel Whirlwind , which is largely based on the life of his cousin, World Jr. Welterweight and British Lightweight boxing champion, Jack 'Kid' Berg (1909-1991).
He has also served as sound designer for theatre and film, with recent theatrical productions including the Drama Desk Award-nominated Threepenny Opera, Professor Bernhardi (Marvell Repertory), Wild Women of Planet Wongo (Not Too Fancy Productions), Macbeth (Red Shark Productions/White Rabbit Theatre) and Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory (Xoregos Performing Company) Chekov's The Cherry Orchard (Treasure House Theater), Wild Women of Planet Wongo (Not Too Fancy Productions), Not Your Mama's Fairy Tales (TRUF), All Gone West (Teatro Circulo) and Nunsense Amen (Park Players). Recent films include Erik Peter Carlson's drama feature, Transatlantic Coffee, Frank Lin's horror feature, Home, Arun Konda's horror feature, Convergence of Souls, Gregory Roberts' comedy short, Stranger Than Nixon, Kat George's comedy web series, The Big Gulp, and Raj Belani's horror short, The Anniversary.
Dr Fredrics' musical works have been widely performed and broadcast in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas at major venues, including The Purcell Room at South Bank (London), The Bloomsbury Theatre (London), Janacek Hall (Prague), Seoul Opera (Korea), Banff Centre (Canada), The Kennedy Center (Washington), and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki).
The recipient of numerous grants, awards and prizes, including a Fulbright Grant, Emmy and Telly Awards, ASCAP Awards, a British Arts and Humanities Research Board Grant, and prizes in the Bourges, SEAMUS, Musica Nova, Luigi Russolo and Tampa Bay Composers' Forum competitions, his works are published by Franklin-Douglass Music, Jomar Press and Auracle Music, and are recorded on the Centaur, SEAMUS/EAM, HEAR, ICMC/DIEM, Ottava and Omnimusic labels.
Howard Fredrics currently resides in the NYC area, where he works as a freelance composer, sound designer and engineer and operates a music and multimedia production company, Auracle Music.
