Clint Needham
Clint Needham was born in 1981 in Texarkana, Texas and began his formal music studies at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music, where he received a Bachelor of Music in Composition. Clint went on to earn a Master of Music in Composition at Indiana University where he is currently a Jacobs School of Music Doctoral Fellow. Additional study was undertaken as a Susan and Ford Schumann Composition Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in the summers of 2003, 2005, and 2007. His principal teachers in composition include Claude Baker, Robert Beaser, Loris Chobanian, David Dzubay, Donald Freund, James Hirt, Sydney Hodkinson, Per Martensson, P.Q. Phan, Christopher Rouse, Sven-David Sandstrom, George Tsontakis, and Richard Wernick. His principal teachers in trumpet include John Brndiar, Jack Sutte, and Joey Tartell.
Clint's music has been performed by various ensembles including the American Brass Quintet, American Composers Orchestra, Aspen Concert Orchestra, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory Wind Ensemble, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Cascadian Chorale, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Indiana University New Music Ensemble, Kuttner String Quartet, Miklos Quartet, New York Youth Symphony, and the Oberon Trio, among others. His music has been performed at various venues across the United States including the Aspen Music Festival, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, International Brass Chamber Music Festival, International Trumpet Guild Convention, Meadowlark Music Festival, Midwest Composers Symposium, Music Educators National Conference in Salt Lake City, National Trumpet Competition, and the North American Saxophone Alliance.
Clint was recently honored with the 2008 Jacob Druckman Memorial Prize from the Aspen Music Festival and the 2008 Lee Ettelson Composer Award for his Five Movements for Wind Quintet. Additionally, Clint has been awarded a 2008 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music Fellowship, the 2007 William Schuman Prize from the BMI Student Composer Awards, a 2007 ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the 2006 Washington International Competition for Composers Award, 2004 Brass Chamber Music Forum Award, and the 2004 International Trumpet Guild composition Award. He was given two Honorable Mentions for his wind ensemble works Legacies and Second City Vignettes in the 2007 MACRO Composition Competition. He was also named finalist in the 2008 Penfield Music Commission Project for High School Band and in the First International Frank Ticheli Composition Contest.
In May of 2007, Clint was selected as one of nine composer's nation-wide to attend the 16th Annual Underwood New Music Readings by the American Composers Orchestra in New York City, where there group read his work Earth and Green. After the readings, ACO named him winner of the Underwood Commission for a new work to be premiered by the group at Carnegie Hall in the fall of 2008. Other recent commissions include his Violin Concertino for the New York Youth Symphony and a concerto for chamber winds entitled Mystery Spins the Thoughts at Play for the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors Commission (NACWPI). Upcoming commissions include a new work for the Albany Symphony's Dogs of Desire ensemble, a new brass quintet for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Faculty Brass Quintet, and a large-scale work for the Indiana University Wind Ensemble.
Clint's music is published by Brass Chamber Music Press, Southern Music Company, Triplo Press and by the composer. The University of North Texas Symphonic Band has recorded his young band work entitled Images of a Hero on their 2008 release entitled "The First Frank Ticheli Composition Contest" and the American Brass Quintet has recorded his Brass Quintet No. 1 "Circus" on their 2007 Summit Records release entitled "Jewels."
Clint is currently an Associate Instructor in Composition at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he teaches private students and classes to composition majors and non-majors. He and his wife Hillery, a violist and orchestra teacher, live in Bloomington , Indiana .
