Listen to Dmitri's Music 

Eggman Variations (2005)

For Piano and String Quartet
Ursula Oppens and the Pacifica String Quartet

Fools and Angels (2004)

For Four Voices and Electronics
The Synergy Vocal Ensemble

Echo Code (2003)

For String Quartet
The Brentano String Quartet

Upcoming and Recent Compositions 

• Duo for Cello and Piano
  Commissioned by John Mayhood
• Dream Diary for Percussion, Saxophone and Keyboards
  Commissioned by Tom Kelly and Harvard University
• Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra
  Commissioned by the Cleveland Contemporary Youth Orchestra
  To be Premiered by the Pacifica String Quartet
• Piano Quintet
  Commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music
  Premiered by Ursula Oppens and the Pacifica String Quartet

Recent Publications 

The Geometry of Musical Chords

The paper that caused a sensation in the music theory world.

Scale Theory, Serial Theory, and Voice Leading

Are there algorithms that can simulate good voice leading? This paper attempts to answer that question. Dmitri continues on his quest to discover what makes good music sound good.

Scale Networks and Debussy

Dmitri analyzes Debussy's approach to harmony and voice-leading.

Recent Fellowships and Awards 

• Arthur H. Scribner Bicentennial Preceptorship, Princeton (2005-08)
• Old Dominion Faculty Fellowship, Princeton (2006-07)
• Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2005-06)
• Fellow, Mannes Insitute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory (2003)
• Charles Ives Scholarship, American Academy of Arts and Letters (2002)
• Leonard Bernstein Fellowship, Tanglewood Music Center (2001)

Dmitri's Education 

• PhD from UC Berkeley (2002)
• Master's from UC Berkeley (1999)
• D. Phil. candidate in Philosophy/Rhodes scholar at Oxford (1992-94)
• Bachelor's at Harvard (1992)

Dmitri on his work 

• "My interests, as both composer and theorist, involve a few basic, and somewhat idiosyncratic, convictions. First, I think that the tonal system, rather than dying a sudden death around 1911, has continued to evolve over the last 100 years, in both the "classical" and "popular" traditions.
  
  "As a theorist, I am interested in exploring the evolution. I am especially fascinated by the various connections between the worlds of jazz and classical music.
  
  "As a composer, I am trying to participate in it, writing music that I hope is both tonal and modern. A second conviction is that musicians tend to make too much out of differences between genres.
  
  "I like to think of myself as participating in a culture that includes not just contemporary concert music, but also popular music, jazz, folk music, classical music, and pretty much everything else. I hope to make a concerted effort to try to think about what I am doing, not just from the vantage of contemporary academic art, but from a more general perspective that hopefully encompasses fundamental human values.
  
  "A third (and perhaps more prosaic) conviction is that technology is fundamentally changing the nature of music, not just by providing us with new sounds, but also by providing us with new ways of thinking in and about music. I am very interested in computer-assisted composition, analysis, improvisation, and the interactions between these."

More on Dmitri 

Dmitri on Boston Public Radio

Listen to the recent radio interview on NPR's "Here and Now" with Allan Coukell.

The Rest is Noise

Alex Ross, music critic at the New Yorker and former critic at the New York Times, calls Dmitri's cantata The Agony of Modern Music "brilliant."

Dmitri is Assistant Professor at Princeton University

Roll-over People->Faculty->Composition

Dmitri's official website

Your one-stop shop for his Scores, MP3's, Publications, Transcriptions, Software...

Contact Dmitri 

• You can contact Dmitri at: dmitri [@] music.princeton.edu