Cary Boyce

“Few communities the size of Bloomington, Indiana are capable of pulling off a musical miracle as difficult as a first-rate premiere of a major new work for chorus and orchestra by a gifted young American composer,” says the national online music journal Sequenza21.com. “But then few communities have a music school like Indiana University’s to draw from for voices and musicians. Cary Boyce’s Dreams Within A Dream, a magical new oratorio for soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra, began life as a commission from an ‘amateur’ singing group called the Bloomington Chamber Singers and was premiered and recorded in downtown Bloomington, with soprano Susan Swaney, conducted by Gerald Sousa, in the summer of 2003….The result is a spellbinding portrait of the human mind at rest and the glimpses of love, loss, terror, death, and revelation that this suspended state offers into the human soul.” The disc also features a performance of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending by internationally acclaimed violinist Corey Cerovsek. (Susan Swaney, Gerald Sousa, and Corey Cerovsek are also alumni of the School of Music)

        Boyce, a composer and co-artistic director of the Aguavá New Music Studio production company, decided to keep his base in Bloomington after graduating with a doctorate in composition from the IU School of Music. A growing figure on the local and national music scene, he has been featured on nationally syndicated broadcasts such as Center Stage from Wolftrap, Cathedral Classics with the Dale Warland Singers, and WFIU’s Harmonia. CDs featuring Boyce’s music with Aguavá’s professional ensemble conducted by IU Professor Carmen Helena Téllez have also received great praise from such magazines as American Record Guide and International Record Review. Upcoming performances include his Ave Maria with the Indiana University Singers in Indianapolis and Los Angeles conducted by IU Professor Jan Harrington, Nightshade played by the Harlequin String Quartet and choreographed by Elizabeth Shea of the IU Modern Dance Department, and an appearance with Aguavá at the Library of Congress's concert season in Washington, D.C. in March.

“Great music is made by working with great musicians,” Boyce says. “At IU, I established partnerships and projects with some of the best in the world, and I live in a community that supports great music. How lucky can a musician get?”