Stephen Dydo

Stephen Dydo is a composer, guitarist, and master of the Chinese qin.  He teaches those instruments, as well as violin, banjo, and ukulele in schools in Westchester and Manhattan.  Stephen has written for virtually all musical media.  His compositions include many vocal and choral works, as well as various combinations of instrumental and electronic media.  He has recently written a number of pieces for Asian musicians using 8th century sources which have been performed in New York, Cambridge, Berlin, Taipei and London, and has premiered many new works for the guitar.  He was a featured qin soloist in the Second Annual Jiangsu Qin Conference in 2002 in Suzhou, and has performed in many solo concerts in New York and at the Sevenoaks Music Festival in England; in 2006, he presented his electric qin in performance in Beijing.  Recently, he has collaborated with the English artist Susan Haire on a number of large-scale multimedia projects, all involving music unfolding in space as well as time: one, 'riverrun', at the Hammond Museum, was a reflection on the power of water in classical Chinese painting and music; another, 'La vita nuova', developed themes from Dante's work.  Their show entitled 'Ten thousand currents' showed for six months in 2009 in Maidstone, Kent.  In 2010, they mounted two shows in the Netherlands, at the OutLINE Amsterdam and the International Water House in The Hague.  Spring 2012 saw their 15-installation show 'Reflection' occupying the entire cathedral at Peterborough, UK for two months; a smaller version was created for the visit of the Dalai Lama to WCSU in Danbury three months later.  Among the organizations performing his works are the Gregg Smith Singers, Group for Contemporary Music, Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Composers' Conference, Lenox Arts Center, League of Composers-ISCM, Stichting Combinatie van Utrechtse Muziekbelangen.  His awards have included the Bearns Prize, a BMI award, a Fulbright fellowship, and Meet the Composer grants.

DMA, Columbia School of Arts.  MA, Columbia Graduate Faculties.  AB, Columbia College.