The music of Clint Needham (b. 1981, Texarkana, TX) has been described as “wildly entertaining” (New York Times), “easy to smile at” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and “fresh and spicy” (Courier-Post). Recently named recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Clint’s music has been recognized with two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, the William Schuman Prize/BMI Student Composer Award, the Jacob Druckman Prize from the Aspen Music Festival, First Prize in the International Ticheli Composition Contest, the Heckscher Prize from Ithaca College, a Lee Ettelson Composer Award and the coveted Underwood New Music Commission from the American Composers Orchestra.

Clint’s orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the Aspen Concert Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, New York Youth Symphony in Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, and Symphony in C. Various chamber groups including the American Brass Quintet, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Indiana University New Music Ensemble, Ithaca College’s KULMUSIK, Quintet Attacca, Stanford Wind Quintet, and the Wingra Woodwind Quintet have given performances of his chamber music across the country and in Europe.

Commissions for the 2010-2011 season include orchestral works for the New York Classical Players, the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra, and the Sioux City Symphony, as well as a new work for soprano and wind ensemble for the United States Air Force Band of the West. Upcoming performances of Clint’s music will be given by the Omaha Symphony, students at the University of Texas Butler School of Music, and at Indiana University’s Summer Music Festival.

Clint recently earned his doctorate degree from Indiana University, where he was a four-year Jacobs School of Music Doctoral Fellow in composition. He also received his MM from Indiana University in 2006 and his BM from Baldwin-Wallace College in 2004. His principal composition teachers include Claude Baker, Loris Chobanian, David Dzubay, Don Freund, Michael Gandolfi, Per Mårtensson, Sven-David Sandström, and Richard Wernick. Clint has also studied with Robert Beaser, Sydney Hodkinson, Christopher Rouse, and George Tsontakis at the Aspen Music Festival as a Susan and Ford Schumann Composition Fellow and with Mario Davidovsky at the Wellesley Composers Conference as a composition fellow.

The American Brass Quintet has recorded his Brass Quintet No. 1 “Circus” on their 2007 Summit Records release entitled “Jewels”. The Theodore Presser Company publishes the majority of Clint’s catalogue with additional works published by Manhattan Beach Music and Triplo Press.