SFCM Composition Chair David Conte's ruby work anniversary is off to a great start.

Following the release of a new album of his chamber pieces, Intimate Voices, from SFCM Alliance partner and record label Pentatone Music, Conte's work will open SFCM's Fall 2025 season of performances with the SFCM Orchestra on September 27, while his Faculty Artist Series (FAS) recital on December 7th will feature two world premieres of his work.

Fittingly for the anniversary, Conte's new album is a collection of pieces inspired by SFCM. "Most of the pieces were prompted by invitations to compose for SFCM faculty and alumni colleagues," he says. "I've composed in many genres—choral, vocal, opera, orchestral, film—but I had not written much chamber music before 2010." The ensemble configurations of the pieces on Intimate Voices, Conte adds, "historically have drawn out the most profound utterances from many great composers, and it's both exciting and humbling to work in these genres. I'm in exalted company." He's speaking literally and figuratively; SFCM faculty, staff and alumni Miles Graber, Kevin Korth, Matthew Linaman, Emil Miland, Kevin Rivard, and Jerry Simas star on the album.

Conte assigns special meaning to his Piano Trio No. 2. "It very consciously pays homage to four quite disparate composers," he says: "Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Stephen Sondheim, Frank Martin, and Beethoven. I am always striving to affirm the continuity of musical culture through my own works." The piece was commissioned by sister ensemble The Lee Trio, two of whom were Conte's students in SFCM's Pre-College when he first began teaching at the Conservatory when he was 29.

Similar lineages abound on Intimate Voices. The sonata for clarinet and piano for example, was written for Frank Cohen, longtime Principal Clarinetist of the Cleveland Orchestra, and one of SFCM Woodwinds Chair Jerome Simas' teachers. "I grew up hearing Frank play in my hometown, and I actually wrote the piece for him," Conte says. "When I sent it to him, he did play it, but he said, basically, 'I'm old now. Jerry can play it better, give it to him. So I did!"

Conte feels "particularly blessed" this fall with the range of his work being performed. Aside from the SFCM Orchestra performing Sinfonietta, organist David Higgs will premiere Conte's Trittico in Paris in October, composed specially for Higgs for the occasion, while the day before Conte's FAS recital in December, the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony will perform his ballet suite The Masque of the Red Death, composed for the 75th anniversary of SFCM in 1992.  

 For the Dec. 7 concert, the main work will be the first portion of an opera based on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a piece Conte has been planning for some time, which will star three SFCM alumni:  Brian Thorsett as Scrooge, Christian Pursell as Bob Cratchit, and Matt Boehler as Marley. It re-teams Conte with librettist Nick Giardini, whom he collaborated with on another Christmas-themed opera, The Gift of the Magi, composed for SFCM in 1997. "Opera naturally is often concerned with current topical subjects," Contre says, "but I have been particularly inspired to work on this timeless story whose message is continually relevant to everyone."

"Composing is not necessarily easy," Conte says. "It requires effort, work, and mastery. But anything worth doing is not necessarily easy." Looking at the breadth of work he's presenting this fall alone, though, one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Learn more about studying composition at SFCM.