Biography
B. Allen Schulz (b. 1964) is the great grandson of the famous vaudevillian and Chicago jazzman, Ollie Powers. He studied music composition at Wabash College, Yale University, and The City University of New York. His primary composition instructors have been Eric Lund and Charles Dodge.
Allen’s musical interests are eclectic and varied. His compositional activities range from music theater to experimental computer-generated music; from arrangements of sacred music for use in worship services to serialized twelve-tone works for orchestra. He has been commissioned to compose music for groups as diverse as the award-winning Minimum Wage theater troupe, secondary school ensembles at the Baccalaureate School for Global Education in Queens, NY, The Lost Dog New Music Ensemble, North/South Consonance, the Ursula vocal ensemble, Ursula’s End, Iktus Percussion Ensemble, The Astoria Symphony, and the Voces Novae et Antiquae Chorus.
Allen works as a consulting editor for the G. Schirmer Music Publisher new works and premieres department. He is proud to be an integral part of the musical scene in his own neighborhood: he volunteers his time teaching music theory and performance at a local high school, and he serves as the executive director of the Astoria Music Society. He is also the founder of Random Access Music, a consortium of New York City-based composers who manage and present performances of their own music in collaboration with new music performance ensembles.
Allen is particularly interested in composing for the human voice and in American-style guitar playing (both electric and acoustic), and he is comfortable working with radical and experimental compositions as much as he is with simpler and more accessible genres, such as music written specifically for children. His awards include the Evenbach Prize in Music Composition, The John Cage Prize in Experimental Music, and high honors in the University of Oregon Waging Peace Through Singing choral competition.
Allen lives in Astoria, Queens, with his daughter, Naomi; his partner, Rebecca; and a cat and a dog. He enjoys traveling with Rebecca as often as they can–particularly to places that have ecological or natural treasures. Allen is an avid scuba diver–holding a certification as a rescue diver–and he has a knack for turning almost any kind of interesting conversation into a less interesting one about either scuba diving or running and marathoning in just a few sentences.