About the Artist
Dr. Joshua Fishbein composes vocal and instrumental music, with special emphasis on choral music. He has won awards from the American Choral Directors Association, the American Composers Forum,
BMI, Chorus America, Chorus Austin, The Esoterics, the Guild of Temple Musicians, the National Lutheran Choir, and several others. Currently, Dr. Fishbein is an adjunct faculty member of The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and Towson University. He holds degrees from the University of California Los Angeles, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Carnegie Mellon University. E.C. Schirmer Music Company, Hal Leonard Corporation, Transcontinental Music Publications, and Yelton Rhodes Music publish his choral compositions.
Joshua Fishbein website View Website
Artist's Statement
I set preexisting texts to music for chorus in a way that dramatizes the meaning of the words. In general, I craft musical textures appropriate to the words I paint. For instance, “Give Me Your Tired Your Poor” begins with a four-part round that quickly becomes dense, appropriate to “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Also, in “To the Thawing Wind,” the piano accompaniment is full of virtuosic flourishes, meant to evoke a strong southwesterly storm. Finally, as I set words by American poets, I combine interesting harmonies influenced by American popular music and jazz with the classical choral idiom.
