Todd Stewart Coleman


Todd Stewart Coleman is a composer, bassist, professor, and founding faculty coordinator of Elon University's Music Production & Recording Arts program where he has taught since 2007. Before Elon, Coleman was a music faculty member at Grinnell College and a curricular technology specialist for the arts. Coleman composes music in diverse musical genres and styles, including music for the concert hall, film and documentary television, and adaptive video game-style symphonic soundtracks for immersive escape rooms. His music often explores the intersection of the arts and technology, blurring boundaries between disciplines and styles.

Coleman studied at the renowned Eastman School of Music in New York (DMA 2002, MM 1999) with composers Joseph Schwantner, Christopher Rouse, Augusta Read Thomas, and David Liptak. His undergraduate studies were at Brigham Young University (BM 1996) with composers Michael Hicks, Stephen Jones, David Sargent, and Murray Boren. He studied the double bass with James VanDemark and Walter Birkedahl.

Recent Projects

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This work for organ and four horns was commissioned in 2023 by Elon University to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the fire that destroyed the original main building on campus in 1923...

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Chamber music written for the cello, including works for amplified cello, piano, surround audio-visual projection, and prepared piano, featuring cellist Florent Renard-Payen...

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Soundtrack for a short film which is a meditation on the lasting impact of losing one's mother at a young age and trying to keep her memory alive...

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A major 35-minute concert work for double choir and orchestra commissioned by Voices - The Chapel Hill Chorus featuring 8 songs with poetry by Sara Teasdale...

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2021 soundtrack for a suspenseful escape room in which campers attempt to snap photographic proof of Bigfoot's existence during a stormy night on Arizona's Mogollon Rim...

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2020 album featuring the adaptive musical soundtrack for a retro-futuristic sci-fi escape room where players attempt to stop a rogue robot before it powers up and destroys the lab and everyone in it...

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Soundtrack for a short horror-thriller film created in 2019 about a young woman under the watchful eyes, ears, and influence of her smart home device, Satori...

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Composed in 2006, a flute concerto for American flutist April Clayton premiered and recorded by Clayton and the BYU Chamber Orchestra and released by Tantara Records in 2012...

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Released in 2022, this is a recording of Coleman's first composition, Adieu, a work for string orchestra written when he was 18 years old at the encouragement of his orchestra teacher...

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Numen Lumen, a work for organ and string quartet, was commissioned by Elon University and premiered by organist Tim Olsen and the Ciompi Quartet, artists-in-residence at Duke University...

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This song was cowritten as part of a collaborative songwriting project at Elon University. The song was released in 2017 by alumni artist Frank Hurd and the Frank Hurd Band...

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This 2011 soundtrack was written for a short film created by a film production team called General Pictures, founded by Stephen Hyers, based in Greensboro, NC for the 48-Hour Film Project...

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Exquisite Corpse is a multi-media work commissioned by Mormon Artists Group in New York for amplified cello, piano, layered video projection, and immersive surround audio...

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In 2001, Coleman was invited to write a chapter about his first composition, Adieu, for the GIA Publications book series Teaching Music through Performance in Orchestra...

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Written on commission from the Penfield Music Commission Project in 2000 as an educational piece to be performed by flute choir of wide ranging ability levels, from professionals to beginners...

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Reviews of Coleman's Music

  • “Masterly orchestral craftsmanship… a feel for odd, refreshing sonorities, and expressive speech… More power to composers like [this].”
    John van Rhein, Chicago Tribune
  • “The melodic invention, the craftsmanship of the presentation and above all the sheer luminosity of the textures I find very attractive.”
    David Tutt
  • “As usual, Coleman writes a music that is as intense as it is magical, as powerful as sensible. The solo seems to slowly, softly exit from the clouds of a dream to reach the final climax in the most natural, spontaneous way... There is a very intense singing, here, and a very clever play of timbres.” 
    Paulo Tramannoni
  • "...fascinating explorations...and striking combinations. It is seldom that commissions are clearly pieces that ought to be played often, well beyond their duty to fulfill a grant. Numen Lumen is a winner!"
    William Thomas Walker, CVNC - Online Arts Journal
  • “His music-making is naturally expressive and has an elegance that is compelling.”
    Augusta Read Thomas
  • “[Coleman’s music is] new and fresh without being unapproachable or tradition-bound… I found it to be touching and wondrous.”
    Glen Nelson
  • “I find his music strong, imaginative and well crafted.”
    Joseph Schwantner

Contact

Contact Todd to discuss a new commission, get performance materials, or discuss an idea for a creative collaboration.

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