Bio
Frances White is a composer of instrumental, vocal, and electronic music. Her music has been called “stunning” (American Record Guide) “moving” (Fanfare), “spectacularly beautiful”, and “so atmospheric and sensuous it is almost fragrant” (Musicworks). Her music conveys intimacy and immediacy, with a tactile and deeply expressive approach which derives from a sincere belief in the transformative nature of sound. White studies the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), and finds that its unique spiritual and sonic voice informs her work as a composer.
A 2004 Guggenheim fellow and graduate of Princeton University, Frances White has received awards, grants, residencies and commissions from organizations such as the the Fromm Foundation, the MAP Fund, the Third Practice Festival (for the ensemble eighth blackbird), the Ditson Fund, Prix Ars Electronica, the Copland Fund, the International Computer Music Association, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, The Crossing Chamber Choir, The Dale Warland Singers, the Bang On A Can Festival, The MacDowell Colony, and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, among many others.
Recently, she received a commission to write The book of evening for the Momenta Quartet, with funding from a New Music USA Project Grant and The Sparkplug Foundation, and her music was featured in the installation Upon Reflection at the 2022 Venice Biennale. In 2023, a full production of Upon Reflection was premiered at the DiMenna Center in NYC, with funding from New Music USA. In 2024 she was commissioned to write falling, away (for chamber quintet) and Night Ceremony (for gagaku instruments and electronic sound) by Random Access Music. White is the recipient of a 2023 fellowship grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, which funded Canticle (for harp and electronic sound) for harpist Danielle Kuntz and The bird and the garden (from a fairy tale) for the Chimera Trio (flute, viola, harp).
White’s music can be heard on CD on the Wergo, Centaur, Nonsequitur, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, Ravello, Mode, MSR Classics, and Bridge Records labels. White’s music was featured as part of the soundtrack of three of Gus Van Sant’s award-winning films: Elephant, Paranoid Park, and Milk.
Profiles & interviews
Profile by James Pritchett written for Array (the journal of the International Computer Music Association) in 1996.
When I was in Richmond for the premiere of The ocean inside at the Third Practice Festival, Tim Munro of eighth blackbird interviewed me. Listen to it, and excerpts of The ocean inside, on the eighth blackbird blog.
The folks at tokafi asked me 15 questions, and I provided 15 answers for their blog.
Writings about music
On women in computer music, written in response to Mara Helmuth’s statement.
Composer and material in musique concrete (1990) is a summary of my thinking about the use of “real world” sounds in electronic music, with reference to specific works by Dodge, Stockhausen, and Risset.
Contact information
E-mail Frances WhiteMail:
Frances White
105 Linden Avenue
Princeton, NJ 08540-8535
USA