Ross Feller

Ross Feller is an accomplished educator, composer, theorist, improviser, and saxophonist. He received a DMA in Composition and Theory from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has taught at colleges including the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Georgia College & State University, Georgia’s Public Liberal Arts University. His awards and honors include the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Composition, ASCAP Raymond Hubbell Composition Award, Gaudeamus Foundation International Composer’s Competition, and ASCAP Young Composer’s Competition, and grants and fellowships from the Paul Sacher Stiftung, Illinois Arts Council, Ingenuity, Ragdale Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs (Brussels, Belgium), and the Gesellschaft für Gute und Gemeinützige (Basel). His compositions have been commissioned and performed by the Oberlin Conservatory Contemporary Music Ensemble, Oberlin Percussion Group, Prism Saxophone Quartet, Ciosoni, University of Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players, Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble Luna Nova, Goliard Ensemble, and members of the Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Elision Ensemble, at venues such as Symphony Space, Roulette, De Ijsbreker, Spoleto, Krannert Center, Presser Recital Hall, Park West, Playhouse Square, Cleveland Public Theatre, Ingenuity, and at many national and international festivals and universities. Recordings of his music and performances are available on New Dynamic Records, Athena Records, Complacency Productions, Savagery Records, Mighty Mouth Records, and UIUC Experimental Music Studios. As a scholar he has published book chapters in A Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches (Cambridge University Press), Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought (Routledge), and Settling New Scores (Schott), articles and analyses in journals such as ACTA Semiotica Fennica, and ex tempore, reviews in the Computer Music Journal, and presented papers at international conferences such as the Creative and Scientific Legacies of Iannis Xenakis Symposium (Canada), Dutch Music Theory Society (Holland), Seventh International Conference on Musical Signification (Finland), Seventh Symposium on Systems Research in the Arts (Germany), and nationally at annual meetings of the Music Theory Society of New York State, Music Theory Southeast, College Music Society, and EthNoise! at the University of Chicago. As a saxophonist he has performed throughout the USA and in Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands with well known performers such as: George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Leroy Jenkins, Greg Bendian, LaDonna Smith, Peter Evans, Jim O’Rourke, Dorothy Martirano, and many others, at venues including: Roulette (New York City), Douglass Street Music Collective (Brooklyn), Werkstatt für Improvisierte Musik (Zürich), Plateau (Brussels), De Beweeging (Antwerp), Sudhaus Warteck (Basel), and Eyedrum (Atlanta).

Feller studied composition with Rome Prize recipient Salvatore Martirano, Pulitzer Prize recipient Henry Brant, Pulitzer Prize Nominee Morgan Powell, Paul Zonn, Darleen Cowles Mitchell, and Leroy Jenkins. He has taught composition, theory, musicianship, computer music, improvisation, jazz, and saxophone at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Kenyon College, Georgia College and State University, Minnesota State University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and has given invited guest lectures at Universities throughout the USA and Europe including: Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Emory University, University of California at San Diego, Basel Conservatory, Liege Conservatory, Free University of Brussels, Catholic University of Leuven, and Columbia College (Chicago). The topics for his scholarly work cover a diverse range including: The New Complexity, swarm algorithms and improvisation, Random Funnels, the impact of technology on compositional praxis, Java coding in Nick Didkovsky’s avant-garde, rock music, facial gesticulation in jazz improvisation, and chaos in free jazz.