Artists
Artists
Frank Ferko
ComposerComposer Frank Ferko’s diverse musical interests, which include Messiaen, Lutheran church music, symbolist poetry, and Hildegard of Bingen, have produced a vibrantly imaginative body of work.
Frank Ferko (b. 1950) received his Bachelor of Music degree in piano and organ performance from Valparaiso University, his Master of Music degree in music theory (with a minor in organ performance) from Syracuse University, and his doctorate in music composition from Northwestern University, where he studied with Alan Stout. Mr. Ferko’s choral works have been performed by such distinguished artists as His Majestie’s Clerkes, the Dale Warland Singers, the Lutheran Choir of Chicago, Chicago Choral Artists, and the American Repertory Singers, and through the sponsorship of New Music Chicago, the Chicago Composers’ Consortium, and the American Composers Forum. Mr. Ferko has received numerous national awards in composition, including the 1989-1990 AGO/Holtkamp Award from the American Guild of Organists, and annual ASCAP awards since 1989. In 1991, he received grants from Meet the Composer and the Community Arts Assistance Program of Chicago; in 1995 and again in 1998, he received the coveted Composer Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council; and in 1997, the Dale Warland Singers awarded Ferko their 1998-99 choral commission in their New Choral Works Program for Emerging Composers. His compositions are published by E.C. Schirmer, with which he has an exclusive publishing agreement. More than twenty of his works have been recorded on compact disc, primarily on the Arsis label and The Liturgical Press.
