Eric Funk, retired after 50 years of teaching, will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Montana State University at fall commencement, December 2023. Twenty of the fifty years occurred at MSU-Bozeman where he served as professor in the School of Music, those two decades resulted in his having taught a total of 18, 934 students, due in large part to multiple large cross-campus arts inquiry courses in addition to composition and orchestration.
WORLD PREMIERE SYMPHONY NO 6, OP 88 APOCALYPSE-PHOENIX RISING (2001)
Sunday, May 8, 2022
11:00 AM 12:00 PM
Eric Funk Bozeman, MT 59718
The Bozeman Symphony Orchestra under conductor Norman Huynh performed the world premiere of Eric Funk’s Symphony No 6, Op 88 “Apocalypse-Phoenix Rising” March 25 & 26, 2023 as part of their 55th Season. The four-movement, 35-minute work included the Bozeman Symphony Chorale singing final movement singing settings by Funk of texts by James Agee and John Dryden.
Requiem for a Forest, Op 168 aired on The Saturday Show with Martin Goldsmith, April 24, 2021, Sirius XM Satellite Radio, Channel 76, and was performed in Seattle at the regional NAfME Conference.
In celebration of Earth Day 2021, the Intermountain Opera Company presented a rerelease of their commission by composer Eric Funk.
With stunning cinematography by Thomas Thomas and a new recording by Montana’s premier choral ensemble, Roots in the Sky, Requiem for a Forest is a plaintive reflection on the Bridger Mountain forest fires, the state of our environment, and the inherent regrowth of a forest.
This piece, premiered October 2020 by Intermountain Opera performers, was broadcasted in a new virtual format on April 22 at 7 PM (MST).
https://bozemanarts-live.com/event/requiem-for-a-forest/
JAZZ SUITE, OP 163: This composition is a five-movement work for piano that exists in two different forms, 28 minutes duration:
Jazz Suite for Piano & 12 Instruments, Op 163
Jazz Suite for Piano, Op 163a
The suite pairs five classical composers with five jazz composers whom I feel used melody, harmony, and rhythm similarly. The music is original but seeks to capture the spirit of the style of each composer group paired. The version with chamber orchestra amplifies the connection I’ve made through my application of the orchestration style of the classical composer in the pair.
The five movements are as follows:
I. Maurice Ravel – Bill Evans
II. Aaron Copland – Horace Silver
III. Francis Poulenc –Dave Brubeck
IV. Igor Stravinsky – Thelonious Monk
V. Gustav Mahler – Billy Strayhorn
In the first, third, and fifth movements of this suite I’ve largely braided the composers’ styles into one. In the second and fourth movements I’ve positioned my representation of these composers more side-by-side. I imagine future performances with pianists who are primarily jazz musicians naturally including added improvised sections over the “changes” (harmonic progressions). In movements II, III, and IV the music is more obviously, while all written out, set up like jazz heads/jazz standards. That style of composition intentionally presents compelling melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic gestures but leaves them undeveloped, crying out for expansion through improvisation. Pianists performing the solo piano version are advised to study a score and recording of the piano + chamber ensemble version. Becoming familiar with that version will enhance the solo performance by affording an approach that, through seeking to duplicate at the piano contrasts in texture and density from the orchestration, will add necessary variety resulting in repeated sections not sounding redundant. The obvious precedent for this is the solo piano version of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” which is more deeply performed through knowing both the jazz band and orchestral versions of that work. For pianists with no jazz background, Jazz Suite, Op 163 affords a strong entry into jazz harmony, melody, and rhythm. It’s all clearly and completely notated to enable pianists to sound like seasoned jazz pianists even if they’ve never played jazz music. For pianists with no classical background, this piece affords a strong entry into the overlap between classical and jazz harmony, melody, and rhythm. Toward that end, listening to more music by Ravel, Copland, Poulenc, Stravinsky, and Mahler will reveal how their individual musical language shares properties with my choice of their jazz counterpart.
Instrumentation for Jazz Suite, Op 163a
Piano, Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet, Bassoon, Trumpet, Trombone, Bass Trombone, Multiple percussion (1 player), Violin, Viola, Violoncello Contrabass
Premiered 2021 MSTMA Conference, Mansfield Performing Arts Center, Stefan Stern, piano, October 29, 2021
“Requiem for a Forest, Op 168” , commissioned by InterMountain Opera Bozeman, was recorded by the choral group Roots in the Sky, Andrew Major, conducting, March 20th, 2021. It will be released as part of a virtual concert at 7 pm March 27, 2021 https://rootsinthesky.org/just-a-collection-of-trees-watch/
Eric Funk’s “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op 71” won the 2018 Global Music Award "Gold Medal - Best of Show” honors: Gold Medal: classical, Gold Medal: composition/composer.
A former student of Tomas Svoboda, Sandor Veress, and Krzysztof Penderecki in the 1970s, Mr. Funk's considerable compositional output includes nine symphonies, four operas, six ballet scores, three large works for chorus and orchestra, nineteen concertos, several orchestral tone poems, and numerous works for chamber ensembles, solo instruments, and vocal works. Eric Funk just completed a new solo violin work entitled "Melisma, Op 147", homage and farewell to our dear friend Andre Melief, the recording by Vilmos Olah can be heard on the works/recording page of this site. Prominent premiers of his works include “From the Dreams of Montana Children” [Carnegie Hall, NY]; his one-act solo opera-ballet for contralto and ballet troupe, "Akhmatova", based on key texts from the Russian poet's life; , his solo concerto "Vili: Concerto for the Violin Alone, Op 109" (now an award winning PBS-TV documentary "The Violin Alone", was awarded six 2018 Emmy Awards: "Music Composition", Best Documentary-Cultural, Director, Photography, Editing, Audio; "Best Documentary" 2017 Chicago Amarcord Arthouse Television Awards), triple string quartet (The Old Masters), commissioned by New Music USA for the Cassatt String Quartet, and "Variations on a Theme by Jan Hanus, Op. 127" for violin and string orchestra which was awarded The American Prize in Composition Special Judges' Citation as "Best Concerto of the Year" 2017. His newest commissioned score, a piano trio "Les Soeurs, Op. 142" was written for the renowned Ahn Trio and the James Sewell Ballet Company (Minneapolis), premiered in Minneapolis November 3, 4, and 5, 2017, and he just created a transcription for piano trio for the Ahn Trio of his 3 BeBop tunes: Flyswatter, Raid, and Deet. Professor Funk has been invited to be a 2018-19 Provost Distinguished Lecturer at Montana State University:
http://www.montana.edu/news/18000/next-msu-provost-lecture-set-for-oct-9-features-eric-funk-in-words-and-music
Mr. Funk was featured on the Charles Osgood CBS Sunday Morning show in October of 1998, which followed on the heels of a front page story in the New York Times "Arts & Leisure" section (April 14, 1998). Mr. Funk was featured on the nationally syndicated NPR radio shows Performance Today [LeeAnn Hanson], Morning Edition, Theme & Variations [Will Everett], The Composer Next Door, and Of the West [Phil Aaberg]. (Listen to the full interview on the Press Page)
From 1994-2002, Eric was conductor of the Helena Symphony Orchestra in Helena, Montana. From 1994-1999, he was also the conductor of the Gallatin Chamber Orchestra in Bozeman, Montana. Past performance venues for his works include Dvorak Hall [Prague], Lutoslawki Radio Hall [Warsaw], Symphony Hall [Riga], Carnegie Hall [NY], the Renda Theater, and the Gaudeamus International Interpreters of Contemporary Music Festival (Rotterdam). His 144 major works have earned him numerous awards and commissions, including 13 ASCAP Standard Awards, the 2001 Governor's Award for the Arts (Montana), a 2011 Innovation in the Arts Award, a 2012 Humanities Hero Award (Humanities Montana, NEH), and three Arts Commission Fellowships.
He currently teaches for the School of Music/Montana State University where he has won numerous teaching awards: 2018 Provost Distinguished Lecturer, 2013 James & Mary Ross Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2009 Distinguished Service Award University Honors Program, and the 2007 President’s Excellence in Teaching Award recipient, serves as Host and Artistic Director for 11th & Grant with Eric Funk, a ten-time Emmy Award winning show in its 14th season [2017] broadcast on Montana PBS & featuring Montana musicians in all genres, and is Music/Artistic Director Emeritus for the Big Sky Classical Music Festival, now in its seventh season [2018]. Mr. Funk retired from this post in 2015, transferred it to violinist Angella Ahn, who currently holds that position.