Stephen Blumberg is a composer of music primarily for acoustic instruments who has also collaborated with visual artists to create soundtracks for video and installation work, sometimes including digital electronics. His music is vivid and colorful, with multilayered textures and intricate rhythmic structures, driven by an underlying instinct for emotion and drama, and shaped by an intuitive sense of form.

Inflorescence for flute solo has been included on a CD of solo flute music released by Laurel Zucker on the Cantilena label. Gyre for harpsichord solo is included on a CD by Jory Vinikour on the Sono Luminus label, released in September 2013. Toccatas: Modern American Music for Harpsichord, was nominated for a GRAMMY in December 2014. Blumberg’s solo marimba piece Scrabble was published by Edition Peters in October 2013.

Blumberg studied composition at the University of California, San Diego (B.A., M.A.), and at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a PhD in music composition. His principal teachers include Bernard Rands, Pauline Oliveros, Andrew Imbrie, and Richard Felciano. Blumberg has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently Professor of Composition and Music Theory at California State University, Sacramento, where he also co-directs the Festival of New American Music.

Free (a Valente Lecture)