This is my endorsement of Hayden Wayne, a brilliant young composer, who should be shown every opportunity!
January 21, 1988
“There is nothing that smacks of populist, commercial art. I would place Wayne very high amongst the ranks of major American symphonists.”
–Jerry Dubins, Fanfare Magazine
..."Hayden Wayne, whose effective way of handling the keyboards, synthesizers and vocals elicited frequent enthusiastic responses from the audience ... proved that he could also become a headliner of the first magnitude!"
–Didier Deutsch, BILLBOARD MAGAZINE, 1974
“Hayden Wayne: Genius is as genius does (relentlessly).”
–John Blenn, November, 2000
Hayden Wayne (born 3/2/49) (composer/librettist) may be one of the first in his generation to take the rare route through pop/rock music's highest levels to reach where he is today. He began playing piano at the age of four and played tenor drum in the orchestra pit of The King And I at the age of five which his father was conducting, and performed his first composition in concert at the age of eleven. He won a second prize medal for piano solo from the New York State Music Awards at fifteen. The '70s saw him performing in the pop/rock world for such major-label backed bands as Man (CBS Records) and Jobriath (Elektra Records). He toured with the likes of Sly Stone, the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, Billy Joel, Gordon Lightfoot, Richie Havens, Gladys Knight and the Fifth Dimension. Eventually, tired of touring, he took (or rather went back) to composing. In his unique position - with a classical training and a wealth of pop/rock experience - he began experimenting with a synthesis of various genres/styles.
As a composer, in 1983 Mr. Wayne opened a new theater for the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles with his metaphorical circus WIRE, won $10,000 USD as national first place in 1987 from the National Institute for Music Theater with NEON (A Street Opera). In 2000, NEON won a 25,000 DM prize in the International Prague Opera Competition. He was commissioned to write IN MEMORIAM: A CELEBRATION, by the Interfaith Concert of Holocaust Remembrance, which premiered at Saint John the Divine in New York in 1993. Subsequently linked with SINFONIETTA # 1: THE KLEZMER and AN ELEGY INTO MADNESS, specifically commissioned for the Fiftieth Anniversary of Israel, and titled A TRIPTYCH, had its world première at Mandel Hall, the University of Chicago in January 1998. In February 1995, his SYMPHONY #4-FUNK had its world premiere at the Janacek Theatre in Brno, The Czech Republic. It sold out in one week seven months in advance and was requested to be part of the Twentieth Century Music Festival and performed at The Rudolfinum in Prague October 21, 1995. The recording of the work would ultimately find itself on the music play-list of President Bill Clinton’s Air Force One!
Mr. Wayne also has several film scores and award-winning commercials for television to his credit. To date, Mr. Wayne has written over four hundred compositions including: SYMPHONY #1-THE SYMPHONY OF FRIENDS; the ballet suite CIRQUE DE LA LUNE; DRACULA (Opera Erotica); PIANO CONCERTO #1 (The Rock "n' Roll) and CELLO CONCERTO #1 which are paired as a diptych; PIANO CONCERTO #2 (The Jazz), PIANO CONCERTO #3-The Romantic; VIOLIN CONCERTO #1; CLARINET CONCERTO #1; SINFONIETTAS #2 (It's a Boy), #3 (The Emerald), #4 and #5; VIOLIN/PIANO SONATA (The "Kraft"); The Symphonic Trilogy: #2-REGGAE, #3-HEAVY METAL, #4-FUNK; and SYMPHONY #5 AFRICA [A Tone Poem] (all recorded by the State Philharmonic of Brno, on New Millennium Records); the choral symphony, SYMPHONY #6-THE GIFT; SYMPHONY #7-CELESTIAL DANCES; SYMPHONY #8-1421; the choral symphony, SYMPHONY # 9-THE HOOP OF LIFE; SYMPHONY #10-DANCES ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON; SYMPHONY #11-CARPE DIEM; SYMPHONY #12-AUCTORITAS; SYMPHONY #13-THE RISING LION; the string quartets: THE NUZEROV QUARTETS #1-enbergeThe Rosr Variations and #2-The Romantic, # 3, 4 & 5, #6, 7 & 8, and # 9 & 10, recorded by the Wallinger String Quartet; FIVE DANCES FOR CELLO AND PIANO and PIANO QUINTET #1 (all available on New Millennium Records); FIVE MORE DANCES FOR CELLO & PIANO; the musical X,Y,Z and hundreds of songs in various eclectic styles.
Founded in 1997, the company's mission statement reads as follows:
We promote public awareness of humanism, intelligence and excellence, of recognizing our assets, not just the deficits, that every artist, painter, architect, every scientific thought, every note of music, every level of excellence, whether in the boardroom or the playing field, comes from within us and and is the very essence of our souls.
The INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIVE FOR THE PERPETUATION OF THE NEW CLASSICISM, Inc. (I.C.P.N.C.), EIN # 31-1737690, was established to fund the promotion of new music by composers who have joined the talents of different artists from around the world. The attempt is to generate a new audience for classical music and stem the tide of attrition because the remaining classical loyalists are slowly dying away. These are critical times and something must be done.
Recognizing all disciplines of music worthy of revisiting, the I.C.P.N.C. especially wants to bring attention to the excellence of all folk music of recent generations and, in particular, those that have been expanded upon into full classical and symphonic style.
The composers and artists will represent the best of classical as popular culture, as were the great masters in their own time. This is the new classicism, based on the folk music of the past fifty years, not in leu of the old, but the continuing discovery of anything worth re-visitation regardless of discipline.
Contributions of any size are most welcome!