Andrea
Reinkemeyer, composer

MUSIC:

The music of American composer ANDREA REINKEMEYER, DMA (Dr. – she/her) “offers a luminous glimpse of the next world” (Fanfare Magazine); it explores “a reverent sound world that hovers just above the brink of silence” (Second Inversion), using “spare, melancholy passages to traverse a complex emotional landscape” (Eugene Weekly), “from reverence and supplication to mournfulness despair” (textura), and praised as “clever, funky, jazzy and virtuosic” (Schenectady Daily Gazette), “magical” (Fanfare Magazine), “enchanting” (International Choral Bulletin), and “hauntingly melodic and fun, dancing and almost running its way forward... whimsical” (Fanfare Magazine). Her current musical explorations focus on intersectional feminist narratives, natural phenomena, home and grief.

Reinkemeyer’s music is distributed by Murphy Press and the ADJ•ective Composers’ Collective and featured on recordings by: Society of Composers Inc. (Navona Records), In Mulieribus, Idit Shner (Origin Arts), and Aerocade Music releases by the A/B Duo and Post-Haste Reed Duo. Upcoming projects include new works for flutist Abigail Sperling with generous support of the Oregon Arts Commission. Recent commissions include: League of American Orchestras and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra with support from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, an opera scene for Rhymes with Opera, Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra, H. Robert Reynolds and The Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings, Fear No Music, Lacroute Arts Series at Linfield College, Rodney Dorsey for the University of Oregon Wind Ensemble and University Singers, a thirteen-school wind band consortium led by Brant Stai and the Sherwood High School Wind Ensemble, Miller Asbill and the Texas Tech University Concert Band, The Wild Swan Theater, Jeffrey Heisler for the Primary Colors Trio, and many performers and visual artists. Her works are regularly performed nationally and internationally; featured performances include: New Music Gathering, American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, North-South Consonance Chamber Orchestra, Great Noise Ensemble, Thailand International Composition Festival, and conferences of the International Alliance of Women in Music (IAWM), Iowa Music Teachers Association, Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI) and Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS).

TEACHING and TRAINING:

Dr. Reinkemeyer enjoys exploring music with students of all ages. In 2014, she joined the faculty of Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon, where she serves as Associate Professor of Music (Composition & Theory) and Gender Studies; she coordinates the Lacroute Composer Readings and Chamber Music Masterclass Program and the Composers Studio. Previous positions include: Part-time Lecturer in the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance (2018), Mahidol University International College, in Salaya, Thailand (2011-12) and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Composition, Theory and Technology at Bowling Green State University, Ohio (2005-10). Reinkemeyer has been the Composer-in-Residence with the: Michigan Philharmonic’s, “The Composer in Me!” Education Pilot Program (2010-11), American-Romanian Festival’s Fusion Project (2011), and Burns Park Elementary School (2004, 2005, 2010). She has mentored public school students through outreach programs with the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings (2007) and Michigan Mentorship Program (2002, 2004). Her work with young musicians has been supported by a Meet the Composer/MetLife Creative Connections Grant.

Dr. Reinkemeyer holds degrees in music composition from the University of Michigan (MM and DMA) and University of Oregon (BM). She was awarded the Julie Olds and Thomas Hellie Creative Achievement Award for Linfield Faculty in 2019; her Smoulder was awarded winner of the Alex Shapiro Prize in the 40th Annual Search for New Music by the International Alliance of Women in Music (IAWM) and named a 2020 finalist for the National Band Association William D. Revelli Composition Contest. Born and raised in Oregon, Andrea has also lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Bangkok, Thailand.

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“ One of the things that defines Reinkemeyer's music is that it isn't daunted by nature...
finding discordant grace where other composers would flinch.”

“ As I listened, I discovered a composer who looks to the horizon,
but also gazes within, translating private pains and passions
into exquisite works.”
- Bennett Campbell Ferguson, Oregon ArtsWatch

“. . . one of Oregon’s brightest emerging voices”;
“her striking contribution {SATURATION} . . . blends the sax's squawky side with
spare, melancholy passages to traverse a complex emotional landscape.”
- Brett Campell, Willamette Week; Eugene Weekly

WROUGHT IRON is “hauntingly melodic and fun,
dancing and almost running its way forward.
There may even be a little Zappa in the syncopation
and in the whimsical handling of modes.”
- Marc Medwin, Fanfare Magazine

“There is an intricacy to the players' interaction that seems,
to the present writer at least, to invoke or reflect some physical design.
Ensemble between the two players needs to be particularly tight in this piece,
and the result is indeed magical”
- Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine

“ . . . clever, funky, jazzy and virtuosic”
- Geraldine Freeman, Daily Gazette

NAAMJAI is “The most boisterous and ungrounded music of the night,
it started off in a bumping, rather brutalist manner.
Eventually things settled into a more lyric and consonant expansiveness,
highlighted by a sweet, extended quartet for the principal strings.”
- Joseph Dalton, Times Union

MUSICIANS of the SUN: “Action is underscored and forwarded
by haunting live music composed by Andrea Reinkemeyer . . . ”
- Ellyce Field, Detroit Free Press

“Her LURED by the HORIZON
has already earned praise as
“compelling and adventurous”
an “important and fascinating work for orchestra.”
American Composers Orchestra

in the speaking silence “explores a reverent sound world
that hovers just above the brink of silence.”
- Maggie Molloy, Second Inversion

“movingly austere...”
- dbarbiero, Avant Music News

“ . . . there is an inevitable touching aspect to this piece of sonic mourning. . .
There is a remarkable multiphonic on saxophone here --
remarkable both for its veracity ... and perfect control.”
- Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine

“ . . . a gamut of emotions is expressed
during its eight minutes, from reverence and supplication
to mournfulness despair.” - textura

FROM CYCLES of ETERNITY
“ . . . offers a luminous glimpse of the next world . . .
. . . the counterpoint is often slow-moving, a bit like hearing lava move . . .
. . . and it is in the stillness of the final panel that the work finds its home.”
- Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine

“ ‘Life’ . . . is especially haunting”
- American Record Guide (July/August 2019)

“ . . . Life features soprano Arwen Myers in a
dramatic and colorful solo
— at first robust, then lyrical and compelling.”
- Bruce Browne, Oregon ArtsWatch