Philip Carlsen studied at the University of Washington, Brooklyn College, and the CUNY Graduate Center, working with Robert Suderburg, Jacob Druckman, and Stuart Dempster as well as Bruno DiCecco and Eva Heinitz. Carlsen taught at the University of Maine at Farmington for 33 years, retiring in 2015 as professor emeritus of music. His music has been performed at New York’s Town Hall and the Museum of Modern Art Summergarden series, at the Kennedy Center, the Ernest Bloch Music Festival Composers Symposium, and many other locations in Maine and elsewhere. He has received commissions from the Bossov Ballet Theatre, American Composers Alliance, and National Symphony Orchestra Residency Program to name a few, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission. In addition to his works for conventional Western media, Carlsen has written for Javanese gamelan, automobile orchestra, and his own invented instruments. Carlsen plays cello and viola da gamba with the early music group St. Mary Schola but has also directed the 2016 Back Cove Contemporary Music Festival at the Portland Conservatory of Music. He lives in South Portland, Maine, with his wife, the poet Jeri Theriault.
Philip Carlsen
Studios
Phi Beta
Philip Carlsen worked in the Phi Beta studio.
Funded by the Phi Beta Fraternity, a national professional fraternity of music and speech founded in 1912, Phi Beta Studio was built between 1929–1931 of granite quarried on the MacDowell grounds. The small studio is a simple in design, but displays a pleasing combination of materials with its granite walls and colorful slate roofing. Inside is…