ABOUT
MAX EIDINOFF

Max Eidinoff is a composer, performer, and educator whose music engages with absurdity as a method for narrative development. He incorporates avant-garde styles, Romanticism, and rock music sensibilities into a soundscape that showcases an enthusiasm for risk taking and drama. Max writes in a variety of genres including concert works, computer music, film scores, and studio mixes. However, his primary passion lies in opera. The ability of vocal music to enhance storytelling, through union of music and text, has been a continuous fascination for Max. It is through a mixture of vocal music, genre bending, and irony juxtaposed with surrealism that he wishes to create a body of work which conveys the complex adversities of life and the world we live in.

 

Max obtained a Bachelor of Music in classical composition with a minor in arts management from SUNY Purchase, studying composition with Laura Kaminsky, Gregory Spears, and Kamala Sankaram. He is currently attending Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University for his Master of Music, studying composition with Du Yun. He has also been a composition student at Seal Bay Festival, Fresh Inc. Festival, zFestival, the Choral Chameleon Summer Institute, Atlantic Music Festival, and The N.E.O. Voice Festival. 

 

In addition to composing, Max is an avid performer of chamber music, opera, and musical theater. His primary instrument is piano although he is also a guitarist and a singer. In Purchase’s New Music and Contemporary ensembles, he has performed works by other student composers as well as Steve Reich, Eric Moe, Louis Andriessen, and Terry Riley. He played in the Purchase Symphony Orchestra for a production of Puccini’s Suor Angelica as well as for orchestra concerts during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. His most recent performance was the premiere of a piano concerto, Yellow Umbrella, written by his friend, Charlie DeRose. Max has been an accompanist for choir concerts, musical theater productions, and NYSSMA soloists in multiple school districts of Westchester County. He has also been the musical director for various shows, working closely with and coaching singers and pit musicians. 

 

Teaching, for Max, has been an outlet for both sharing and self-discovery. Through piano and guitar lessons, he has been able to offer his musical perspective to a younger generation. This perspective includes placing high value in reading notation and understanding compositional form and technique as well as introducing modern and contemporary music to students at an early age. It is Max’s goal to encourage the development of free-thinking musicians from a student’s very first lesson.

 

Recently, Max has become more involved in the administrative side of the arts world. Through his minor in arts management and position as production intern for Make Music Alliance in 2022, he has discovered a passion for organizational leadership. Interacting with various musical groups in preparation for and during the performances at Liberty Island for Make Music Day 2022 was Max’s first professional use of his administrative skills for others. These experiences have been rewarding in that they allow engagement with creative pursuits that reach beyond that of composing, performing, and teaching, offering new perspectives on what it means to be an artist. He hopes to continue administrative work during his career to help facilitate turning the creative expression of others into tangible, public presentation.