Mary Ellen Childs
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Name
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Mary Ellen Childs
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Bio
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MARY ELLEN CHILDS has been acclaimed for creating both rhythmic, exuberant instrumental works and bold, kinetic compositions that integrate music, dance and theater in fresh and unexpected ways. She has created numerous “visual percussion” pieces that embody the concept of music in motion, for her ensemble CRASH. Her repertoire includes Click, a fast-paced, game-like work for three stick-wielding performers; DrumRoll, for four drummers on wheels; Sight of Hand, based on uniquely American forms of body percussion—girls’ clapping games, hamboning, and baseball coaching signals —and Crash, a full-evening work for 6 crash cymbal players on rollerstools and various other rolling means of transportation.
She writes for a variety of ensembles, including solo accordion, string quartets, chamber groups, and vocal groups. She has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Opera America, the Dale Warland Singers, The Kitchen, the Walker Art Center, Other Minds, Live Music for Dance NY/NJ, Meet The Composer’s commissioning programs, and the MAP Fund.
Over the last thirty years she has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a 2011 United States Artist Friends Fellowship, two Bush Foundation Fellowships, five McKnight Foundation Fellowships, a fellowship in support of her interdisciplinary work from Intermedia Arts, and eight Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Awards. Childs has received support from the NEA’s Composer-in-Residence program, Meet The Composer, and the American Composers Forum (Jerome Commissioning awards), a Creative Explorations award from Creative Capital.
Her music has been performed in Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, and Australia. Her percussion group CRASH traveled to Russia three times, and recently performed in Cuba at the invitation of the Havana International Theater Festival. She has received artists fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, the Bush Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Compact discs of her work include Kilter (XI label) and Dream House (innova), a remix of Dream House, titled Chamberhouse (Sugarfoot Recordings), Wreck (innova), Documerica (string quartet ETHEL, innova), Liaisons: Re-imagining Sondheim, among others.
