Stuart Diamond – Past Concerts

Stuart Diamond is best known as a composer, musician, and librettist, where he has created a vision of new art that fuses electronic media and words with classical music.

He has composed well over 100 works in all medium including symphonic and chamber music, theater, dance, film and video. He has written for a diverse range of artists, including Kronos String Quartet, Metropolitan Opera star Elinor Ross, Israeli cellist Simca Heled and Max Polikoff, the founder of the first "Music in Our Times" series at the 92nd Street Y. He has written works for the SLC Orchestra, Topango Symphony, Ensemble Arte Viva de la Sorbonne Paris, and the Meadows Chamber Orchestra. Most recently, Karen Bentley premiered his KONZERTO for Violin and Electric Orchestra.

Mr. Diamond was one of the first musicians to perform with the Lyricon, the original wind synthesizer. The Lyricon is an instrument that transforms a performer's wind and embouchure pressures into electrical voltages that in turn control the dynamics parameters of a synthesizer. As a result, the synthesizer is turned into an instrument of remarkable expression and power.

Many of his seminal works incorporate the use of live performance electronic instruments, creating huge soundscapes that are a synergy of contemporary sound with classical musical forms.

Diamond's ensemble, Electric Diamond, has been performing continuously since 1979. It is perhaps the only ensemble dedicated to presenting live classical electronic music concerts, with a repertoire covering the entire spectrum of classical music from the Middle Ages, Baroque, Classical, and Native American music. The ensemble has premiered many of Mr. Diamond's original works, including the fantasy tone poems Lyric Images, Dances of Merlin and Beauty and the Beast. The National Parks Service produced a series of concerts by Electric Diamond, including a special pre-fireworks 4th of July concert at Castle Clinton that was sponsored by Atlantic Records. Electric Diamond has appeared at a variety of other venues, including Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, the Guggenheim Museum, the International Conference of Computers in the Arts, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT universities, and the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. Electric Diamond has been heard on nationally syndicated radio shows, such as New Sounds, The Hearts of Space, Robert Sherman's The Listening Room, and at the Liberty Science Center for its prestigious Geraldine R. Dodge lecture series.