Lawrence Dillon
Phone: (336)770-3253
Email: dillol@ncarts.edu

Composer Lawrence Dillon (b. 1959) has produced an extensive body of work characterized by a keen sensitivity to color, a mastery of form, and what the Louisville Courier-Journal has called a “compelling, innate soulfulness.”

A recording of his works, featuring flutist Ransom Wilson along with the Borromeo, Cassatt and Mendelssohn string quartets, was released by Albany Records in the summer of 2002. American Record Guide called it “lovely…austere…vivid and impressive.” Classical Voice North Carolina cited the recording as “delightful and engaging…inventive and skillfully scored…fascinating and imaginative.” In NewMusicBox, Amanda MacBlane commented on a “pure mode of expression that layers lines so gracefully they seem to play themselves with an energetic fervor. Dillon's painterly style carefully colors phrases with glissandi and subtle accents underneath an intricate tapestry of sound."

The 2004-05 season featured several international performances, including premieres in Kiev, Ukraine; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Paris, France; as well as in Boston, New York and other U.S. cities."

Dillon’s Amadeus ex machina was awarded a special commendation by the 2003 Masterprize panel in London, and was chosen as contemporary competition piece for the 2002 Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition in Kharkov, Ukraine. His educational piece Snegglish Dances was commissioned and premiered by the Louisville Orchestra, which subsequently won the 2001 Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming from ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

The Daedalus String Quartet, grand prize winner of the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition, premiered Dillon’s String Quartet No. 2: Flight on its 2003-04 tour.

Dillon’s Wright Flight, commissioned by the 2003 “illuminations” Summer Performing Arts and Film Series, was premiered at Roanoke Island Festival Park in July 2003. The work combines orchestra, projected images and three strands of narrative to tell the story of the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Wright Flight was selected as a featured work in the Wright Brothers' Centennial Celebration at Kitty Hawk in December 2003.

The youngest of eight children raised by a widowed mother, Lawrence Dillon grew up in a comfortable suburb in New Jersey. His earliest memories are of a house filled with the sounds of older siblings practicing the piano. At the age of seven, he began his own lessons, and quickly developed the habit of composing a new work each week.

In 1985, Dillon became the youngest composer to earn a doctorate at The Juilliard School, winning the coveted Gretchaninoff Prize upon graduation. As a student, he also won an ASCAP Young Composers Award and first prize in the annual CRS New Music Competition. He studied privately with Vincent Persichetti, and in classes with Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, David Diamond and Roger Sessions. Upon graduation, he was appointed to the Juilliard faculty.

In addition to his duties at NCSA, Dillon has been awarded residencies with numerous summer festivals, including the Charles Ives Center, the Saugatuck Festival, the Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival and the Killington Festival. He has been a guest lecturer at the Hartt School of Music, Indiana University, Yale University, the University of California at Sacramento, the Buckley School, the Museum of the American Piano in New York and the Reynolda House, Museum of American Art. In 1999, he was named music program director for the “Illuminations” festival on Roanoke Island.

His works have been performed and broadcast throughout the Americas and Europe. His Violin Concerto was commissioned and premiered by the late Naumberg-winner Elaine Richey.

Dillon has earned numerous awards for his work, including grants from the American Music Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and Contemporary Record Society. In 1999, he received an artist fellowship from North Carolina, the highest honor accorded to artists in the state.

Dillon’s music is recorded by Albany Records, Channel Crossings and CRS. His works are published by American Composers Editions, a subdivision of BMI. He is represented by Jeffrey James Arts Consulting.

More information, including compositions, performances and recordings, may be found on Dillon's website: www.lawrencedillon.com. An ongoing blog on his work may be found at http://www.sequenza21.com/dillon.html