Reviews and Information about Fraley

31-Oct-98, Frog Prince Insert:

“The Frog Prince” is composer Christopher Lee Fraley’s second commission for Chaspen and his second collaboration with librettist Penny Orloff.  Their first, “Red Riding Hood,” played at last year’s Redmond Children’s Playhouse.  A former cellist, Fraley’s compositions include string quartets, chamber ensembles and symphonic works, as well as song settings of his own poetry.

Nov-97, Eastsideweek, “Tale-tell opera” by Gavin Borchert (classical music writer):

First up was Little Red Riding Hood, a five-actor, 25-minute fresh take on the classic, where Little Red’s wanderings in the forest lead her into incidents from Snow White and Cinderella. In the end, the resourceful Red dispatched the wolf with the poisoned apple given to her by the Witch, and ended up reunited with the Prince Charming after their encounter at a ball.

The show was a true opera, sung throughout, and Christopher Fraley’s score was well-suited for his intended young audiences, his music simple and tuneful, his orchestration neat as a pin, and his lyrics clever and gracefully set. ...

Orloff had found Fraley, a Carnegie-Mellon-trained composer with a sizable catalog of chamber and orchestral works to his credit, when she was scouting around for new works for the Young Audiences series. Fraley showed her a few excerpts from his planned Red setting, and Orloff began to whip the book into shape, taking inspiration from the classic “Fractured Fairy Tales” skits from the old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons.

12-Sep-97, Chaspen Foundation for the Arts:

In the spring of 1997, Christopher Lee Fraley received the Chaspen Foundation’s first New Music Development Grant. The $5000 prize commissioned the creation of a chamber opera for the Foundation’s Opera for Young Audiences Program. The result is a “fractured fairy-tale” version of Little Red Riding Hood, which has its World Premiere at the Redmond Children’s Playhouse on November 1, 1997 in Redmond, Washington under the baton of Charles Long.

Born in Fairborn, Ohio to a musical family in 1967, Christopher Lee Fraley grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania playing the cello for ten years before exchanging it for the more-portable guitar. He pursued his musical studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, at the same time completing a degree in Computer Engineering.

His impressive body of compositions includes string quartets, mixed chamber ensembles and larger orchestral pieces, as well as a considerable number of song settings of his own poetry. His works have been presented in recital and concert by many of the Northwest’s top musicians and song recitalists.

His masterful vocal writing and evocative musical style make him a natural theater composer. Although not originally a fan of opera, his exposure to the innovative productions of Chaspen Opera Theater has sparked his enthusiasm and led to plans for several other projects.

20-May-96, Recital insert:

Christopher Lee Fraley is starting a second career in composing, next to his “full-time” occupation as a programmer at Microsoft. Raised in a musical family, Chris played the cello for ten years before dropping it in favor of a more portable instrument, the guitar. He studied at Carnegie Mellon University, receiving a BS in Computer Engineering in 1989. While in school, Chris pursued additional studies in music and poetry. He also enjoys woodworking, gardening, playing Doom, and eating ice cream.

Chris’ favorite composers include Beethoven and Schubert, and even though he enjoys most classical music, he has taken a strong dislike to Mahler, probably due to horn friends who insist on Mahler’s superiority. Chris also enjoys Sting, Peter Gabriel, and King Crimson.

All of the compositions being played tonight were written over the course of the last year, under the tutelage of Peter (Nagy-Farkas) Wolf.