Praised as “beautiful and intelligent” (Andrew Porter, The New Yorker), the music of Joel Phillip Friedman encompasses musical theater, concert, and educational works.
Joel’s early musical experiences -- playing trumpet and electric bass in bands, listening to recordings by the Beatles and Charlie Parker, creating jazz band arrangements -- were followed by studies at Boston University (Bachelor’s and Master’s in Composition) and Columbia University (DMA in composition). In recent years, Joel has received fellowships and grants from The MacDowell Colony, the National Orchestral Association, the American Music Center, Society of Composers, ASCAP, and Meet the Composer. Premieres and commissions have come from organizations including Speculum Musicae, the Contrasts Quartet, American Opera Projects, The New Jersey Chamber Music Society, Seton Hall University, New York Philharmonic players Paul Neubauer (former principal violist) and cellist Maria Kitsopoulos, pianist Alan Feinberg, and soprano Susan Narucki.
The Off-Broadway musical Personals, of which Joel was co-composer, is regularly performed throughout the U.S. and abroad, and recently completed a successful run on London’s West End. The London cast album has been released by Jay/Ter Records. Personals has received awards from the American College Theatre Festival and the New England Theatre Communications Group, as well as numerous nominations for Outer Critics Circle Awards and Drama Desk Awards. Joel’s work in musical theater has also included material for the critically-acclaimed Let Freedom Sing commissioned by the American Music Theater Festival and written in collaboration with lyricist-brother Seth Friedman, and Stew!, a children’s musical theater piece, for which he wrote book, lyrics and score. Friedman has also been a Consulting Editor with the Library of Congress for two critical restored editions of Gershwin musicals: “Strike Up the Band!” and “Pardon My English.”
Upcoming projects include Fallings, a chamber music theater piece (Seth Friedman, librettist) commissioned by the Contrasts Quartet with Susan Narucki and a recording of Pas de Deux with Fred Sherry, ‘cello, and Stephen Gosling, piano. In addition, his work will be heard on a forthcoming Americus Records CD featuring Susan Narucki and Alan Feinberg: “Extraordinary Vistas: The MacDowell Colony Project.”
During the 2002-03 academic year Joel is visiting Professor of Music at Swarthmore College. He is currently on leave from Seton Hall University where he teaches composition, music theory and an assortment of music history courses (including the Music of Broadway and a course on The Beatles). His music is published by Samuel French and Grey Bird Music, and he is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. He has also been known to play electric bass and sing on full-length rock concerts.
Joel lives in Manhattan with his wife Jennifer Bilfield, a music publishing executive, their daughter Hallie, and parrots Percy and Heathcliff.