Thank you for stopping by. For audio and sheet music samples, and more information, please visit my website at www.andrewbleckner.com.

Andrew Bleckner studied composition with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania, and received a Ph.D. in composition in 1995. While at Penn, he received the Paul Rochberg Fellowship, and the Helen L. Weiss Prize for Vocal Music. After completing his Ph.D., he taught in the music department at West Chester University from 1996-1999, and then served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music in 1999-2000 at Susquehanna University.

Around 1994, Mr. Bleckner began a spiritual and artistic transformation upon being exposed to the writings of Rabbis Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Michael Lerner, two seminal figures of Jewish Renewal. Since then, his primary musical inspiration - choral, vocal, and instrumental - has come from sacred texts. Several of Mr. Bleckner?s choral works are distributed by Transcontinental Music Publications, the music press for the Union for Reform Judaism, including settings for choir and percussion of Psalms 96 and 150. His setting of Psalm 150 has been performed throughout the US including venues such as the 2006 American Choral Directors Association Southern Conference, and the 2003 All-State Texas Music Educators Conference. His setting of Psalm 42 recently received Honorable Mention in both the Vanguard Premieres Choral Composition Contest and the First Annual Meistersingers Choral Composition Competition. The combined choirs of Rennaisance Voices and Con Spirito recently premiered his Psalm 42 in Sweden.

Along with music inspired from sacred texts, Mr. Bleckner's other main passion is musical theatre. He combined his two loves recently in 10th and Luke, a sacred youth musical commissioned by the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church (Pennsylvania). 10th and Luke is a modern retelling of the Good Samaritan story - the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10.

Mr. Bleckner has received composition awards, grants, and fellowships from ASCAP, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the American Composers Forum, the University of Pennsylvania, and the MacDowell Colony. He has received commissions from the Dale Warland Singers (1999 Choral Ventures Program), Westminster Choir College, the Virginia Beach Symphony, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Virginia Wesleyan University, and Voces Novae et Antiquae. His orchestral music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra (1996 Whitacre Readings) and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Currently, Mr. Bleckner serves as Resident Composer for the Singing City chorus of Philadelphia. He mentors the young composers who are the winners of the annual Singing City composition prize, and leads music creativity workshops in area schools. Prior to his work with Singing City, he cultivated a method of teaching music creativity to young music students through outreach grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the American Composers Forum. In 2002, he taught musical creativity and drumming in elementary schools in the Virginia Beach area as part of a grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, which supported him in writing an original ballet for the Virginia Beach Symphony. In 2003, he continued along a similar path teaching musical creativity and drumming at Synagogue Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia, as part of a self-designed grant from the American Composers Forum, which supported him in the creation of a new multi-movement choral work on the theme of spirituality and nature.

My approach to composition is eclectic. Primary influences include sacred texts, and African drumming.

My music is often well suited for dance and multimedia collaboration, and I have worked on dance and music projects with Beverly Duane's Second Wind Dance Company (Virginia), and Anne-Marie Mulgrew and Dancers (Philadelphia). I also write for the musical theatre, and I recently completed a new sacred musical for the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church based upon the Good Samaritan story. Previous theatrical projects include Shema: A Holocaust Cantata with Westminster Choir College's Fuma Sacra on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

In addition to being a composer, I am also a drummer, and in particular, an African djeme player. When I write for choir, I occasionally include a percussion part featuring the djembe in one or more movements. I also write for drum or percussion ensembles alone, and my percussion chamber music has been premiered several times by the University of Minnesota Percussion Ensemble, and is available from Southern Percussion.

Finally, in part as a result of my role as composer-in-residence for Philadelphia's Singing City Choir, I have created a large body of childrens songs for accompanied choir and/or solo voice

2008 Shehecheyanu/Psalm 150 for SATB choir and percussion and also SSAA choir and percussion
2007 Ode To A Young Girl: Annalies Marie Frank for children?s choir, SATB choir, tubular bells (or handbells), and piano
2007 What I See for SAATTBB choir
2006 The Silence for SATB choir
2006 3 Hebrew Reflections on the Divine for SSAATTBB choir and percussion (2):
I) Kumi Lach, II) Yedid Nefesh, III) Adon Olam
2005 10th and Luke: A Sacred Youth Musical
2004 Flow II for percussion octet and tape
2003 Psalm 42 for a capella mixed choir
2003 Sing A New Song for SSAA choir, fl., vla, 2 perc., pno., and percussive dancers
2002 Sacred Waters: Songs of Faith and Renewal for soprano, piano and harp
2002 Eitz Chayim: A Tu B'Shevat/Earth Day Suite for choir and 3 percussion
2001 Sand Castle Fantasy: a ballet for narrator and orchestra
2001 Psalm 150 for SSAATTBB choir
2000 Flow for percussion quartet