Wallace, Stewart (Farrell)

Wallace, Stewart (Farrell), prominent American composer; b. Philadelphia, Nov. 21, 1960. He studied literature and philosophy at the Univ. of Tex. at Austin (B.A. with special honors, 1982), and composed his first opera as his thesis. However, he was autodidact in composition. He received various awards and fellowships, and also a MacDowell Colony residency, a Yaddo residency, and a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Bellagio, Italy. In 1998 he was one of the principal figures at the new Inst. on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard Univ. Wallace has demonstrated a particular flair for dramatic composition. His theater scores reveal an imaginative eclecticism that draws upon elements ranging from high art to pop culture. He first attracted widespread notice with his zany opera Where’s Dick? (Houston, May 24, 1989), which was later transformed into the first feature-length animated opera. It was followed by his opera Kabbalah (N.Y., Nov. 14,1989), the subject of which is Jewish mysticism. His Harvey Milk (Houston, Jan. 21, 1995), an operatic treatment of the murders of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk by disgruntled ex-city supervisor Dan White, earned Wallace critical encomiums in the U.S. and abroad. He followed this opera with Hopper’s Wife (Long Beach, Calif., June 14, 1997), a sexually charged treatment of the American painter Edward Hopper. His subsequent scores include Yid-disher Teddy Bears (1999), a “punk-klezmer” opera, and High Noon (2000), a “gun” opera. Among his other scores are Gorilla in a Cage for Percussion and Orch. (1997), Kaddish for Harvey Milk for 3 Soloists, Chorus, and Orch. (1997), The Cheese and the Worms for Percussion and Piano (1999), and the film score Afraid of Everything (1999).

— Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire