Clarice Assad

Recent works include the ballets Iara, (2018) and Sin Fronteras (2017), Opera das Pedras (libretto by Denise Milan) (2010) and collaborations with librettist Niloufar Talebi (The Disinherited) and playwright E.M. Lewis (The Crossing). Strongly shaped by a conscious drive towards narrative, her works wear its influences well, feeling inspired rather than derivative.

Assad is the recipient of such awards as the American Composers Forum National Composition Competition (2016), the McKnight Visiting Composer Award (2015), the New Music Alive Partnership program (League of American Orchestras)-(2014–15), the Van Lier Fellowship (2010), Latin Grammy nomination for best contemporary composition (2009), the Aaron Copland Award (2007), the Morton Gould Young Composer Award (2006), All Songs Considered - NPR (2004), the Franklin Honor Society Award (2001) and the Samuel Ostrowsky Humanities Award (2001).

In 2010, Assad wrote the first of its kind, a concerto for scat singing, piano and orchestra, named SCATTERED. Many other works followed on this verge, and in 2019, Assad wrote SYNTHETICO, a work for chamber ensemble and vocal electronics .

In 2010, Assad began performing more frequently, and eventually founded the international ensemble Off The Cliff, an energetic and daring four piece ensemble of internationally accomplished musicians.

Assad has performed professionally since the age of seven. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago and a master's degree in Composition from the University of Michigan, where she studied composition with Michael Daugherty. She is a 2009 Latin Grammy nominee.

Assad was the featured composer for the 2008–2009 season at the New Century Chamber Orchestra, where she worked as the orchestra's primary arranger and orchestrator for a decade.

Assad's compositions include pieces for a variety of instrumentations, including smaller works for piano, guitar pieces as well as pieces for large and small chamber ensembles, and fifteen orchestral works. Though the ensembles she writes for are largely classical, her voice as a composer has been heavily influenced by Brazilian music, Jazz and World Music. Her orchestral work Nhanderú and Terra Brasilis, commissioned and premiered by the Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo are examples of her Brazilian roots, drawing on Assad's knowledge of the country's folk style and the work of fellow classical composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Among other works influenced by Brazilian popular culture is her concerto for guitar and orchestra, O Saci-Pererê and Brazilian Fanfare, an overture for orchestra commissioned by the Chattanooga Orchestra in 2005.

Upon graduating from the University of Michigan, Assad moved to New York City to experience the exploding music scene, freelancing as a composer and arranger while trying to build a career as pianist and singer. During her New York years (2005-2015), Assad worked as the featured composer for the New Century Chamber Orchestra, as well as serving as the orchestra's primary arranger from 2007-2017, contributing vastly to the addition of new works for strings, by orchestrating and transcribing over twenty five major works from the symphonic repertoire, including Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Richard Strauss' Dance of the Seven Veils from the opera Salome, and the suite An American in Paris, by George Gershwin.

She first came into the national spotlight in 2004, when conductor Marin Alsop programmed her violin concerto with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music featuring Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg as the soloist. The piece was recorded by Salerno-Sonnenberg and Marin Alsop leading the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and released on the NSS Music label when Assad was 26 years old. Since then, Assad has been steadily commissioned, pursuing ways of incorporating her composing and performing. Such attempts culminated on the creation of a major work: a concerto for scat singing, piano and orchestra which she wrote for herself to perform. Scattered was premiered by the Albany Symphony under the baton of the conductor David Alan Miller, and has since been performed by many other ensembles and conductors, including the Michigan Philharmonic, Chicago Composers Orchestra and OCAM. Other works include “The Disappeared,” a political piece for orchestra and concert band that draws on impressions of Rufina Amaya, the sole survivor of the El Mozote massacre in 1981, during the Salvadoran Civil War, and most recently, “Ad Infinitum,” a percussion concerto written for Dame Evelyn Glennie involving improvisational gestural techniques - such as sound painting - for the orchestra, soloist and conductor alike.

Assad's first work for the stage was a soundtrack written for a 2001 re-adaptation of the play La Lección de Anatomía, by Argentinian playwright Carlos Mathus, originally published in the 1970s. Directed by an original cast member Antonio Leiva, the play received mixed reviews, but garnered the composer favorable mentions from the acclaimed theatre critic Bárbara Heliodora. Following a hiatus of over a decade, Assad resumed writing for stage in 2010, when she was invited by choreographer Kristi Spessard - then in residency at Mabou Mines - to compose the score to her piece "Essentials of Flor."

In Rio de Janeiro, between 1995-1997, Assad acted as a pianist, arranger and keyboardist on several musicals including Tá na Hora (by playwright Lucia Coelho), A Estrela Menina (by Joaquim de Paula) and Doidas Folias by playwright and composer Tim Rescala. Though passionate about music, she struggled with the decision to pursue an academic degree, due to the limited prospects in the industry in Brazil. As she prepared to study for the entry college exams majoring in marine biology, her father Sergio had met astro physicist Angela Olinto, and moved to Chicago. A year later, Assad was given the opportunity to study film scoring at the Berklee College of Music, leaving Brazil in 1998.

In 1993, Assad and her younger brother Rodrigo Assad moved to France to live with their father, in a home he shared with his second wife and their child Julia. Assad studied piano and improvisation privately with Natalie Fortin, a professor from Le Conservatoire national Supérieur de Paris, and benefited also from her father's mentorship, composing and arranging numerous pieces. This was a prolific period, though short lived amidst a turbulent time. Mr. Assad's wife, who had been battling cancer, died a year later at 38. Assad returned to Brazil with her brother.