For the month of May, our musical artist of the month is Chris Neiner.

Chris Neiner (b. 1994) is a Cleveland-based composer of contemporary classical music with colorful harmony, diverse influences, and engaging energy. Neiner’s style derives from his
passion to foster collaborative works with instrumentalists. His recent collaborations include Playtime, a new work for horn, violin, and piano, commissioned by a consortium of collegiate
horn professors across the United States; and Serenade for the Ghosts, a phantasmic fantasy for clarinet and string quartet, commissioned by Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics. His work has been praised by Cleveland Classical for “incorporating the zazzy colors of the current new music dialect,” and “pleasant shocks and melting cadences.” Currently, Neiner serves as a composition faculty and composer-in-residence at the Aurora School of Music in Aurora, Ohio.

The music of Chris Neiner has appeared on programs by the Grammy award-winning
Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Sinfonia,
American Modern Ensemble, Boston New Music Initiative, Cochran Chamber Commissioning Project, Copper Street Brass Quintet, Red Hedgehog Trio, loadbang, Minnesota Symphonic Winds, Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, Rocky Ridge Music Center, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, faculty of the MacPhail Center for Music, and more.

Beyond his collaborative work as a composer, Neiner is a producer and coordinator for
several music events. In 2019, he served as the associate director, composer-in-residence, and conductor for Music in the Circle, a summer concert series facilitating collaboration between international artists and students, faculty, and alumni of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Other projects include Leora’s Reverie, a concert to benefit the One Voice Foundation by American-Israeli songwriter Katia Bolotin, and New Music for Horn, a multidisciplinary project that facilitated music making between hornists, composers, conductors, and recording artists studying at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Neiner has also gained a reputation as a highly sought-out arranger and copyist, working
with organizations such as Reimagining Opera for Kids, the Vietnamese American Society for
Creative Arts and Music (VASCAM), the Cleveland Institute of Music, and internationally
recognized composer and trumpeter Anthony Plog.

Neiner completed a master’s degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with
Keith Fitch. Previously, he studied composition and horn performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with composers Claude Baker, Aaron Travers, P. Q. Phan, Don Freund, and hornist Richard Seraphinoff. He is an alumnus of the Mostly Modern Festival, New Music on the Point Festival, RED NOTE New Music Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.

Learn more about Chris Neiner at https://www.chrisneiner.com or listen to his work at
https://soundcloud.com/chris-neiner.