Rachael Coleman
Biography
Rachael Coleman (née Christopher Coleman) (b. 1958, Atlanta, Ga.) is a transgender American composer, conductor, and trombonist working in Hong Kong.
Coleman earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where she studied composition with Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran. While at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned the M.A. in composition, she studied with George Crumb, George Rochberg, and Richard Wernick.
Coleman's works range from large-scale multimedia/improvisation pieces to works for orchestra, symphonic band, chamber ensembles, instrumental solo, and voice. Most recently she has been developing the technique of massive replication and time shifting through a series of electro-acoustic compositions that have been widely acclaimed in the US and Europe. A prize-winning composer, she has received numerous commissions and grants, including those from from local groups the Hong Kong Wind Kamerata, the Hong Kong Wind Philharmonia, the Hong Kong Composers' Guild, RTHK Radio 4, and the Hong Kong University Grants Committee.
A trans-media artist interested in the creative process, Rachael Coleman also works in painting, sculpture and computer graphics. She is a founding member of People’s Liberation Improv, Hong Kong’s leading comedy improv group, and has performed with them in Beijing, Seoul, Singapore, Manila, and Macau as well as Hong Kong. She has been awarded first place in the Percussive Arts Society Percussion Ensemble Composition Contest and the ASUC/SESAC Composition Contest. Her CD (under the name Christopher Coleman) Multiple Worlds from Ablaze Records is a recipient of Global Music Awards in the categories of album, composition/composer and computer/electronic music.
Dr. Coleman is currently Composition Concentration Coordinator of the Hong Kong Baptist University Department of Music. She has also taught at the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Columbia College, and in the Interlochen Center for the Arts summer program.
Works for Winds
- chrysalis: in memoriam Olivier Messiaen (2015)
- Dark Gardens (1999)
- A Jazz Funeral (2005)
- Lebewohl (2012)
- The Post-Apocalyptic Blues (2016)
- The Snake Oil Peddler (2010)
- Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue (2010)
- Threnody (1979)
Resources
- Christopher Coleman, Hong Kong Baptist University Department of Music Accessed 27 June 2016
- The Horizon Leans Forward…, compiled and edited by Erik Kar Jun Leung, GIA Publications, 2021, p. 296.
- "Women, Feminists and Music Conference: Transforming Tomorrow Today: Conference Composers." Berklee. Web. Accessed 16 March 2020
- Rachael Coleman website Accessed 10 January 2021