Education
American Conservatory, Fontainebleau, France, studied under Nadia Boulanger, and others
Eastman School of Music, Military Medal, composition, 1982
Indiana University’s School of Music, Doctor of Medicine, composition, 1988.
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Susan Hurley
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Hurley"s compositional style is an "unusual, unique voice highly individualistic." Her work "defines two opposing characteristics of the post-minimalist style – lyricism and rhythmic drive..” The 1992 piece "Gallery Music for Harp" examples this by engaging the listener with "a strong introductory flourish" developing into "gentle, otherworldly sounds.” This alternation between opposites is observed again in a review of "Vermont Poems" and its harmonic reliance on "shifts between unisons and dissonants" The range of the instruments used by Hurley is broad, including ancient and subtle instruments such as the clavichord and older compositional vehicles such as the chamber opera. Hurley wrote one such opera based on the lives of Anaïs Nin and Rupert Pole.
This was commissioned by Joan Palevsky of Los Los Angeles
Palevsky had been "instrumental" in securing a transfer of the papers of Anaïs Nin to University of California, Los Los Angeles The commission was part of this effort. Hurley was born in Massachusetts and raised in Vermont.
Composers Forum.
