Patrick Holcomb performs his original composition “Carousel After Milhaud and Archipenko,” 2024.
In writing “Carousel after Milhaud and Archipenko,” Holcomb took as his point of departure Darius Milhaud’s “Le Tango des Fratellini” and Alexander Archipenko’s "Carrousel Pierrot," 1913. “Le Tango des Fratellini,” an extract from Milhaud’s ballet Le bœuf sur le toit (1919–20), is based on “Tristeza de caboclo,” 1919 by Brazilian composer Marcelo Tupinambá. Holcomb’s piece weaves together fragments of both Milhaud’s and Tupinambá’s material into a frenetic and off-kilter dance that suggests Archipenko’s clown-turned-carousel spinning out of control.
About the Composer
Patrick Holcomb (b. 1996) is a composer based on Long Island. A member of Mensa since age nineteen, Holcomb seeks to write music that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging. His recent compositional honors include the 2022 ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Prize, a 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a 2021 American Prize in Composition, and a 2020 BMI Student Composer Award. In addition to concert music, Holcomb also composes music for film. Recently, his score for the 1925 silent documentary "Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life," which was commissioned by Indiana University Cinema as a part of the 2019/2021 Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award, accompanied the film during its screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in 2023.
Holcomb completed his undergraduate studies at Ithaca College, from which he graduated top of his class in the School of Music with a BM in Composition in 2018. He went on to earn an MM in Composition and an MM in Music Scoring for Visual Media from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2021. His former teachers include Claude Baker, Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Robert Morris, Eugene O’Brien, Evis Sammoutis, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Tom Schneller, Aaron Travers, Dana Wilson, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. Holcomb is currently a PhD candidate in composition at the University of Rochester Eastman School of Music as a recipient of the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull University Fellowship from the University of Rochester. In addition to composing, Holcomb is also a passionate educator. He is currently an Adjunct Instructor of Music at Hofstra University.
