Virgil Moorefield

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Virgil Moorefield (1956, Chapel Hill, NC) is a composer, drummer, and author.

His most recent CD, Things You Must Do to Get to Heaven, (2007) is available on Innova Records. A companion work, The Temperature in Hell is Over 3,000 Degrees, (1997) is available on Tzadik, and his Distractions On the Way To the King's Party (1994) is available on Cuneiform. The Virgil Moorefield Ensemble has performed in Europe and the U.S., including the Inventing America Festival at London's Barbican Hall, the Patronaat Festival in Haarlem, Holland, and the Bang on a Can Marathon at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. A collaborative CD, The Emily XYZ Songbook, appeared on Rattapallax in 2005; a collaborative intermedia work, Chicago Union Station, was presented at the International Computer Music Conference in Miami in 2004. Moorefield was awarded Rockefeller Foundation (2004) and MacDowell (2005) composition residencies. He has also received grants from Commissioning Music USA, the Illinois Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Moorefield was commissioned by the Bang On A Can All-Stars to compose Arrival of the Crows; an orchestral work, Blanqui (Fragments for Orchestra) was premiered by the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble in Brooklyn. His book, The Producer As Composer, was published by MIT Press in 2005. As a drummer, Moorefield has worked with numerous rock and avantgarde artists, including Glenn Branca, Swans, Bill Laswell, Elliott Sharp, and Damage. Moorefield received an M.F.A. and a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University. He also holds an M.A. and a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University, and studied at the Juilliard School. He is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.