| Myron Fink, born in Chicago in 1932, studied at the
Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music and at the University of Illinois
where he received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1954 and his Master of
Music in 1955. He spent the following year at the Staats-Akademie der Musik
in Vienna as the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship. His teachers include
Felix Borowski, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Bernard Wagenaar, Burrill Phillips
and Robert Palmer.
Mr. Fink is active as a composer, pianist, coach-accompanist, teacher
and lecturer, currently residing in San Diego, CA. He was on the
faculty of Hunter College of the City University of New York from 1966
to 1991. He also taught at the Curtis Institute of Music and at the State
University of New York College at Purchase. As a pedagogue his areas of
interest are composition, analysis, harmony and counterpoint.
Fink is a prolific composer who has written for voice, piano, organ,
orchestra, chamber ensemble and a wide variety of instrumental and choral
combinations. His greatest interest is in opera and music for the theater.
His incidental music to Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle has been performed
in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and South Africa. JEREMIAH,
his first full-length opera, was premiered by Tri-Cities Opera in Binghamton,
New York in 1962 and was the first opera to receive support from the New
York State Council on the Arts. A second production was mounted in 1983
by the same company. The New York Times called it “one of the best operas
written in the United States.” A second opera, JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES was
given a concert premiere in 1978. CHINCHILLA, a comic opera was commissioned
and premiered by Tri-Cities Opera in 1986. His fourth opera, THE CONQUISTADOR,
was commissioned and premiered by San Diego Opera in 1997 with great success.
Other recent works include four Symphonies, a Piano Concerto, a
String Quartet, a Rhapsody for Klezmer Ensemble and Orchestra, and
SPOON RIVER PORTRAITS, an oratorio for Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra
based on Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. His opera for children
ANIMALOPERA,
written in 2000 on commission from San Diego Opera is now available
on enhanced CD.
In 2003 he completed EDITH WHARTON: A SELF PORTRAIT, an opera based
on the life of the famous early 20th century American novelist.
In September 2003 it received its first public preview in a recital
hosted by San Diego's Lemon Grove Historical Society in which soprano
and tenor arias from the opera were performed. A Victoria
High Tea at the Horton Grand Hotel in San Diego, California
on December 29, 2003 will be the occasion of its next public preview.
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