Andrew Stiller (b. 1946, Washington, DC) studied clarinet, bassoon, and recorder in his youth, but originally intended to be a paleontologist. Graduate studies with Lejaren Hiller and Morton Feldman led to a 1976 doctorate in composition from the State University of New York at Buffalo. During that period Stiller was a member of Lukas Foss's legendary Center of the Creative and Performing Arts, performing his own and other avant-garde works at Carnegie Hall, in Buffalo, and on tour. Later he appeared with the Decapod Wind Quintet, the Age of Reason Baroque Ensemble, the Buffalo New Music Ensemble, and Network for New Music.
In Buffalo, Stiller was active in every branch of music: composing, performing, teaching at several local colleges, and contributing music criticism to the Buffalo News. As one of the most prominent musicians in the city, he helped found and lead the Composers' Alliance of Buffalo. With the city's decline as a new-music center in the mid 1980s, the composer moved to Philadelphia. From this base he has developed a national reputation, contributing to the repertoire of major touring ensembles and new-music festivals. Stiller has created musical works in virtually every genre and medium, embodying the encyclopedic instrumental expertise displayed in his critically-acclaimed Handbook of Instrumentation. Recordings of his music are available on MMC 2014 and Innova 516.
In 1991 Stiller founded Kallisti Music Press, which publishes his own music and that of other contemporary composers, as well as neglected early American scores. He has written on music for numerous national publications, as well as the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, for which he was the editorial consultant on contemporary American developments. He has spent most of the past decade writing and rewriting a large orchestral work that, he swears, will eventually come out right.
Web: http://pw1.netcom.com/~kallisti/Stiller.html