Dr. Francine Trester
email: ftrester@berklee.edu
EDUCATION
1998
Yale University, DMA in composition
1993-1994
Yale University, MMA in composition
1991-1993
Yale University, MM in composition
1987-1991
Yale University, BA in music, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
1980-1987
Juilliard Precollege Division, violin major
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2013-present Professor of Composition, Berklee
College of Music, Boston, MA
2002-2013 Associate Professor of Composition,
Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA
2003-2004
Faculty member of Tufts University, Somerville, MA
2002-2003
Faculty member of the Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA
2000-2002
Faculty member of the Yale School of Music, New Haven, CT
1999-2000
Faculty member of Walnut Hill School and Powers Music School, MA
1996-1999 Assistant Professor in Music at Austin
College, TX
1995 The Baylis Programme at the English National
Opera: Post of Assistant to the Directors of Live
Wires and Live Culture
1995
Composer-in-Residence at the Queenswood School, Hertfordshire, England
AWARDS
2023 Berklee Faculty Fellowship to compose In Her Element for Kendall Square Orchestra
2019 Berklee Faculty Fellowship to compose A Walk in Her Shoes for Boston Landmarks Orchestra
2017
Berklee Recording Grant to record 2nd
Partita for Solo Violin
2017
Nahant Cultural Council Grant for Nahant
Calling song cycle (words and music)
2016
Academic Sabbatical (fall semester, 2016) awarded by Berklee College of Music
2014 Massachusetts - American String Teachers Association selects
Trester’s My Darling’s Slumber (commissioned
by Aaron Larget-Caplan) for MA-ASTA Solo Competition Repertoire
2012
Grant from Berklee Faculty Development to fund Zodiac Trio performance of Trester’s 5 Summer Haiku at Edinburgh Fringe
Festival and in Glasgow, Scotland
2011
Chair Recording Grant to Berklee String Dept. Chair Melissa Howe for the
purpose of recording Trester’s String
Quartet No. 3 (at WGBH Fraser Performance Studio)
2007 Newton Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant and
Weston Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant for song cycle, Domestic Affairs
2007 Excellence in Curriculum Development Award,
Berklee College of Music
2006
Berklee Faculty Recording Grant to record Woodwind
Quintet
2005 Recipient of Fromm Music Foundation Award
(awarded to Composers in Red Sneakers)
2005
Berklee Travel Grant: to support performance of Bus #66 at Carnegie Hall
1998
The ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award
1994-1995 Fulbright Graduate Student Award for
Composition: study at Cambridge University,
United Kingdom with Professor Alexander Goehr
1994
The Woods Chandler Memorial Prize for Composition
1993
The John Day Jackson Prize for Composition
1992-1994 Composition Scholarship–participant in BMI
Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop
1992
Julia Loomis Havemeyer Scholarship
1991
Music major, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Yale University
1990,
1989 Violin Fellowship– Tanglewood Music Festival
SELECTED
PERFORMANCES AND COMMISSIONS
2023 Shelter Music Boston Songs of Life commission
2023 Commission from the Kalliope Reed quintet to write The Azure World for mezzo and reed quintet
2022 Commission from saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky to write All Points
2021 Boston Hatch Memorial Shell premiere of A Walk In Her Shoes; Boston Landmarks Orchestra
2021 Commission from Meghan Dillon to write for the New England
Symposium for Female-Identifying + Saxophonists;” support from
the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail to compose “Voices from
the Boston Women’s Memorial”
2021 Merkin Hall premiere of A Fable for Tomorrow; Mirror Visions Ensemble
2020 Commissions from the Boston
Woodwind Society, Mirror Visions Ensemble, Elmira Darvarova and Howard
Wall, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, ensemble LIGAMENT
2019 Street Views
(orchestral version) - commissioned by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms
Society Orchestra of Boston; premiere of orchestral version at Faneuil
Hall
2019 Reminiscences - commissioned by World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund, Inc.
2018 Sekelela - for SATB choir
and the Triple Helix Piano Trio; commissioned by Communities Without
Borders and First Unitarian Universalist Society in Newton
2018 Borrowed Blue – for
viola and guitar, words and music by the composer; commissioned and
premiered by Aaron Larget-Caplan and Michael Hall
2018 Florence Comes Home - commissioned by Shelter Music Boston
2018 In Our Own Words - commissioned by Shelter Music Boston
2017 Street Views - commissioned by Kenneth Radnofsky for the Amram
Ensemble
2017
Walkers with the Dawn - commissioned
by the Rivers School
2017
An Oman Odyssey - commissioned by the
Mirror Visions Ensemble
2017
Songs of Nahant and Blackburnian Warbler - commissioned by
the Nahant Music Festival
2016
A Robert Lowry Reader - commissioned
by soprano Jayne West
2015
Elemental Emily - commissioned by
pianist Lois Shapiro and soprano Sarah Pelletier
2015
At the River - commissioned by the
Boston Landmarks Orchestra
2014
Sleeping Beauty - chamber opera commissioned by the Nahant
Music Festival
2014
Performances at St. Petersburg Conservatory and the
Russian Foreign Library (with guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan); as part of a
12-City Tour of China (with the Zodiac Trio); and at The American University of
Paris and SubCulture, N.Y.C. (with the
Mirror Visions Ensemble).
2013
Commission from Scottish Clarinet Quartet; quartet premiere at ICA
ClarinetFest,
Assisi, Italy
2012
Zodiac Trio performs 5 Summer Haiku at
Edinburgh Festival, Scotland
2012
334 Bunnies (one-act chamber opera;
words and music by Francine Trester) performed at Longy, St. John’s in Jamaica
Plain, and the Shirley Meetinghouse
2012
Trester’s String Quartet No. 3 recorded
at WGBH, performed at Berklee, Cambridge School of Weston, Westford Parish
Center for the Arts
2010-12
Six Portraits performed by CalTech,
University of Anchorage, Los Angeles, University of Rhode Island, and Berklee
Clarinet Choirs
2011
Mark O’Connor String Fest: performance of Echoes…Of
the Past…Return
2011
Premiere of Dialogues and Three Dedications
2008,
2010 Premiere of MYTHOS by the
Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra, performance of MYTHOS by the Shasta Symphony
2009
New Lullaby commission from guitarist
Aaron Larget-Caplan
2007-2009
Premiere and multiple performances of Domestic
Affairs and Backyard Birds
2006
Commissioned by the Providence Mandolin Orchestra, Merrimack Valley
Philharmonic Orchestra, trumpeter John Holt, guitar duo Mark and Beverly Davis,
Wheeler School Concert Handbell Ringers
May
2005: Bus #66, song cycle performed
at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall
1999-2005
Bus #66 and other songs commissioned
by baritone Richard Lalli, the Mirror Visions Ensemble, mezzo-soprano Mary Ann
Hart, soprano Patricia Prunty
2002-2006
Member of Composers in Red Sneakers, a Boston based new music group
2006
Performances of Red Sox Blue Sax by
Radnofsky Saxophone Quartet
1999-2006
Premieres and performances at: Florence Gould Hall; Kosciuszko Foundation;
Joseph Papp Public Theater; Goethe Institute, Berklee College of Music; Yale,
CUNY, Tufts and Wesleyan University, M.I.T.; Longy School of Music (including
multiple SeptemberFest); 1st and 2nd
Church, Boston; New Gallery Concert Series, Boston
2000
Summer Serenade (for orchestra)
commissioned by Music on the Hill Summer Festival
1997
String Quartet No.2 commissioned and
performed by the Arianna String Quartet
1997
Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Piano
commissioned and performed by faculty (Roger Zahab, violin) at the University
of Akron
1996
Orchestral work commissioned by the Queenswood School
1994
Scoring for Liability Crisis–
independent film; screened nationally
and
internationally in 1995
1994
Commissioned to write Orchestral Overture for Wallingford Symphony
RECORDINGS AND
PUBLICATIONS
New Lullaby Six String Sound
Facets III Crystal Records
Facets II Crystal Records
Secrets Albany Records
String Works Albany Records
Awaiting the Sun Beauport Classical
Laments Clear Note Publications
Multiple
broadcasts including KRWG, Las Cruces, KCBK, San Luis Obispo, WGBH, Boston and
KALW, San Francisco, El Show de
Fernandito, and YouTube