Education
- MFA, Princeton University
- MMus, University of Toronto
- BMus, University of Toronto
Biography
Toronto composer James Rolfe has been commissioned and performed by ensembles, orchestras, choirs, theatres, and opera companies in Canada, the USA, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the K. M. Hunter Music Award, the Louis Applebaum Composers Award, the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, SOCAN’s Jan V. Matejcek Concert Music Award, a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, and the Outstanding Choral Work Award from the Association of Canadian Choral Communities.
The Queen of Puddings Music Theatre Company production of Mr. Rolfe’s opera Beatrice Chancy played to sold-out houses and rave reviews in Toronto, Dartmouth, and Edmonton. The company later produced Inês, which was nominated for a Dora Award. Three masques--Orpheus and Eurydice, Aeneas and Dido, and Europa--were premiered by The Toronto Masque Theatre to critical and audience acclaim. Elijah’s Kite, an opera for children, was co-produced in New York by Tapestry Opera and the Manhattan School of Music, and given its Canadian premiere before the Governor-General at Rideau Hall. His opera Swoon was premiered by the Canadian Opera Company, which commissioned a new opera, Crush, mounted in a workshop production at The Banff Centre in 2015. Against Nature, created with choreographer James Kudelka and writer Alex Poch-Goldin, was commissioned and produced by Coleman Lemieux Compagnie in 2016.
Current projects include a new operatic version of Gogol's The Overcoat for Tapestry Opera and Vancouver Opera with writer Morris Panych, to be produced in spring 2018, as well as new works for soprano Janice Jackson and for the Hannaford Street Silver Band. Breathe, a CD of Mr. Rolfe's works for voices and early instruments will be released on the Centrediscs label in spring 2017.