Corey Field

Corey Field

Corey Field was born in 1956 in Los Angeles.  He was trained as a composer at UC Santa Barbara (B.A.), Edinburgh University, Scotland (studies abroad), and the University of York, England (D. Phil.).  His early career included awards and commissions from organizations including The Arts Council of Great Britain, two BMI Student Composer Awards, residence at the Charles Ives Center, and premieres and performances worldwide including the Wigmore Hall London, BBC recordings and broadcasts, and commercial recordings.  Corey also was a music journalist and wrote articles on music for scholarly journals.   Upon returning to the United States from his budding career and studies in the UK, Corey entered the international classical music publishing business, ultimately becoming the Vice President of European American Music based in New York, the United States office of the leading European publishers Schott and Universal Edition.  Corey’s music business career led to him virtually stopping his work as a composer, though several small works were published by Helicon Music Corporation, Schott’s United States affiliate and are still available.  Beginning in the late 1990s, pursuing an in depth knowledge of copyright law and business, Corey attended law school while continuing to work in the music industry, which led to the third “phase” of his career in the arts, as a leading copyright and entertainment attorney, initially on the East Coast, now based in his home town Los Angeles.  As an attorney, Corey has his own boutique law firm and is an acknowledged expert in the field of entertainment law, and is the author of the best-selling practice guide and textbook “Entertainment Law Fundamentals and Practice” and a former adjunct Professor at USC Gould School of Law.

In about 2018, after decades of silence as a composer, Corey was moved to resume his composing in a new style for him, initially compelled by a long-brewing, perhaps even suppressed creative and emotional response to a very personal tragedy from earlier in his life, involving the passing of two of his three children, emotions that took decades to form into a meaningful lyrical musical representation of the beauty and poignancy in everyone’s lives.   This musical eruption took form initially in a flurry of compositional activity in large scale forms, including a choral symphony trilogy (“Shakespeare Symphony,” “Hymn Symphony,” “Dreams Symphony”) in which inspiring poetry and texts ranging from Shakespeare, to Blake, to Poe, to Yeats and James Joyce, and others, and the Bible, served as the inspiration.   His newly found “voice” which is very melodic, “mid century tonal” and approachable found further expression in an outpouring of large scale lyrical and dramatic orchestral and vocal works that are published by First Leaf Music LLC (www.firstleafmusic.com) and are being gradually recorded and released on the First Leaf Music record label, available from all leading streaming services.   Like Alexander Borodin, a famous chemist and scientific author by profession who was also a composer; and Charles Ives, an insurance executive who was also a composer pursuing his own path, Corey’s livelihood is not as a full time composer or teacher, but as a lawyer in the arts (including in the world of classical music).    Highlights of his prolific return to composing since 2018 are four symphonies (including a choral symphony trilogy); “Three Places in Los Angeles” for orchestra with works evoking his beloved home town including “Mulholland Drive,” “The Lake at Franklin Canyon,” and “Laurel Canyon;” “The Trial of Benjamin Britten” a dramatic song cycle in nine scenes for tenor, horn, and strings; “Alone With You” for solo piano; “The Eye of Heaven” for SATB chorus, and other works.  Future projects as of this writing include plans for a string quartet and song cycle.

Composer's Web Page: firstleafmusic.com/

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