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Graduate Musical Theatre Writing

Education

M.F.A., New York University (GMTWP), 1997./ M.Phil, Cambridge University (in musicology), 1995./ B.A., Harvard University (in music, summa cum laude), 1994.

Biography

Hailed as “one of the most brilliant young composers of his generation” (Mark Greenfest, New Music Connoisseur), Randall Eng has devoted his career to mining the territory between opera, music-theatre, and jazz. His opera Florida with librettist Donna DiNovelli recently received its first full production at Lyric Opera Cleveland; reviews praised the score as “brilliant”, “captivating”, “luminous”, “thrilling”, “beguiling”, “haunting”, “delectable”, “a significant, snazzy work” (Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer). Florida was previously presented at New York City Opera’s VOX festival and the Public Theater’s New Work Now! festival.

 

He is currently working with librettist Alexis Bernier on an opera entitled Henry’s Wife, which has had readings, workshops, and presentations at Tapestry New Opera Works (Toronto), American Opera Projects and the Virginia Arts Festival. Other theatrical works include Cocktails (Circle East Theater), Castor & Pollux (Eugene O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference), Usher, Falling (Opera Vindaloo Festival), and the video opera The Woman in the Green Coat (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). His non-theatrical works include commissions for Albany Symphony Orchestra’s Dogs of Desire, Mirror Visions Ensemble, and baritone Marcus DeLoach.

 

Randall has been awarded grants and residencies from the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Ucross Foundation, the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, the John Duffy Composers Institute at the Virginia Arts Festival, American Opera Projects, Raw Impressions Music Theatre, the Eugene O’Neill Music Theatre Conference, Tapestry New Opera Works, and New Dramatists. He is a graduate of Harvard University, Cambridge University, and New York University, where he currently teaches, and has studied with Anthony Davis, Mark Adamo, and Wadada Leo Smith. A Staten Island native, he lives in New York with his wife Katie and their one-year-old daughter Olive.