Title: Chimera
Commission: 2015
Completed: 2018
Instrumentation: flute and piano
Premiere Location: Chengdu, China
Premiere Ensemble: Conor Nelson, flute and Thomas Rosenkranz, piano
Notes:

The music of Mikel Kuehn has been described as having “sensuous phrases . . . producing an effect of high abstraction turning into decadence,” by New York Times critic Paul Griffiths. A 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, he has received awards and honors from ASCAP, BMI, the Barlow Endowment, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (First Hearing Award), Composers, Inc. (Lee Ettelson Award), the Copland House (Copland Award), the League of Composers/ISCM, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Competition, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Luigi Russolo Competition. His works have been commissioned by the Anubis Saxophone Quartet, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Ensemble 21, Ensemble Dal Niente, Flexible Music, violist John Graham, clarinetist Marianne Gythfeldt, cellist Craig Hultgren, guitarist Dan Lippel, Perspectives of New Music, pianist Marilyn Nonken, Selmer Paris, and the Spektral Quartet, among others. Recordings of his works are available on ACA Digital, Centaur, Erol, ICMA, MSR Classics, Perspectives of New Music/Open Space, and New Focus (forthcoming).