Andrea Clearfield

Artist Statement

I have long been passionate about what we are capable of as humans. I also believe that music, with its ineffable resonance can help people access the deepest parts of themselves. Over the past 40 years I have written both abstract music and socially conscious music tackling pressing human issues. My belief in the power of music to create global connection, healing and transformation is what propels me forward as an artist, and keeps a fire lit in my soul.

Andrea Clearfield improvising at the piano at her Szalon concert series, 2022

Bio

Creating deep emotive musical languages that build cultural and artistic bridges, the music of Andrea Clearfield is performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. She has written 175 works for opera, chorus, orchestra, chamber, dance and multimedia. Among her works are 17 cantatas including one for The Philadelphia Orchestra. She is currently working on "Long Live the Queen (a her-story of drag)", an hour-long cantata with librettist/drag artist Cookie Diorio, Symphony & Stix for orchestra and drumline and a classical guitar quartet for the Canadian Guitar Quartet. Documenting Tibetan music in the Nepalese Himalaya inspired a decade of new work including "Lung-Ta", presented to the Dalai Lama as an initiative for world peace, "Tse Go La" cantata on rites of passage, and "MILA, Great Sorcerer", opera to libretto by Jean-Claude van Itallie and Lois Walden based on the Tibetan saint Milarepa, presented by the NYC 2019 Prototype Festival. She was awarded a Pew Center International Residency Award, a Pew Fellowship, Leeway and Independence Foundation Fellowships and Fellowships at the Rockefeller’s Bellagio Center, American Academy in Rome, Yaddo and MacDowell among others. She is Founder/Host of the Philadelphia SALON concerts since 1986 featuring diverse programming. She is represented by Black Tea Music.

https://www.andreaclearfield.com/