Chair of Music Theory and Composition
Education
Evan received his B.M. in Composition from Chapman University, M.M. in Composition from California State University Northridge, and D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Maryland. Evan has also attended the Aspen Music Festival and Fontainebleau American Conservatory.
Performance and Teaching Experience
Evan Meier’s music has been featured in performances by the Minnesota Orchestra, New York City Opera, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the Great Noise Ensemble, the Capital City Symphony, the Nimbus Ensemble, Nicholas Photinos of eighth blackbird, Paperwing Ensemble, the Calyx Quartet, the University of Maryland Percussion Ensemble, the Youth Orchestra of Prince William County, the McLean Youth Orchestra, and the Chapman University Wind Ensemble. Meier’s Fire Music was selected for the Minnesota Orchestra’s 2015 Composers Institute, and performed for the Future Classics program, with Osmo Vänskä conducting.
In 2022, Meier collaborated with Hip-hop artist Christylez Bacon to create Migrations in Rhythm, a Concerto for Beatbox and Rhyme. The work was commissioned by John Devlin, music director of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. Migrations combines elements of beatboxing and both prewritten and freestyle rap verses within the context of an orchestral concerto. The concerto provides a musical setting for Christylez’s storytelling and virtuosic rhythmic explorations in the styles of Hip-hop, Agbadza, ring shout, rumba, New Orleans jazz, funk, and Go-go. The work received subsequent performances by the Greenville Symphony Orchestra and the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic.
Opera has been a major focus of Meier’s compositional output. His one-act chamber opera, The Last Act of Revolution, was presented by New York City Opera’s VOX Festival in the fall of 2012; it was premiered earlier that year by the University of Maryland Opera Studio. The New York Times described the opera as having “a very polished feel…the music firmly rooted in the drama.” Meier has served as a Resident Artist with the American Lyric Theater, as part of the Composer/Librettist Development Program. In 2014, ALT presented his one-act chamber opera, The Resurrection Engine, which Meier wrote in collaboration with playwright E.M. Lewis. Meier and Lewis completed their first full-length opera collaboration, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant, in 2020. This family-friendly opera combines the world of fairy tales with the storytelling device of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The concert version of the opera was premiered at the American Lyric Theater Insight ALT Festival, conducted by Andrew Bisantz. The work received its world-premiere staging with Opera Modesto and an educational premiere with Portland State University.
His one-act chamber opera, The Last Act of Revolution, was presented by New York City Opera’s VOX Festival in the fall of 2012, after it was premiered earlier that year by the University of Maryland Opera Studio. The New York Times described the opera as having “a very polished feel…the music firmly rooted in the drama.” Evan’s Fire Music for Orchestra was selected for the Minnesota Orchestra’s 2014-2015 Composers Institute.
Evan is currently on the Music Theory faculty at Towson University and has previously taught music theory and composition at the University of Maryland, Hood College, American University and California State University.
Since 2013, Evan has been the Resident Artist with the American Lyric Theater in New York, as part of their Composer/Librettist Development Program and was the Composer-in-Residence with the Youth Orchestra of Prince William County from 2013-2014.
At Levine
Evan has been on the Levine faculty since the fall of 2014 where he teaches music theory classes and is Chair of the Music Theory department.