I was born in Burlington, North Carolina, in 1957. My father, Forrest Covington Sr, was an avid folksinger and collector of Appalachian folk music, and it was this music that first influenced me. By age 8 I was a fanatic over Bach and Stravinsky, and had written several short pieces. In high school I was one of those "band kids" who played nearly every instrument, and I wrote pieces for the bands at my schools and various music camps. In my early teen years I taught myself composition through reading books on harmony and counterpoint, but soon it became apparent that I needed a thorough grounding in music, and at 15 I was accepted on a private basis to study harmony with Thomas Brosh and piano with Sherril Martin, both then graduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While I was taking lessons there, the resident composer Roger Hannay allowed me to experiment with the Moog synthesiser in the electronic studio ( a converted mop closet).
I attended the NC School of the Arts from 1975 to 76, where I benefitted from the excellent teaching and wise counsel of Robert Ward, and studied piano in sporadic fits with Bela Nagy and Clifton Matthews. Then I transferred to the Cleveland Institute of Music, where my teachers were Donald Erb and Eugene O'Brien in composition, Alvaretta West in ear training and improvisation, as well as William Kurzban and Olga Radosaljevich ("Miss Olga") in piano. I was lucky enough to participate in the performing environment of the school due to my piano abilities, absorbing much knowlege and meeting fantastic musicians everywhere, as well as perfecting electronic music concrete techniques in the studio there. In 1982 my first symphony, "Chthonic Mass" won a BMI Young Composer's award. This work was eventually performed in 1991 in a joint concert of the Winston-Salem and North Carolina symphonies.
My post graduate work was at Iowa University under Richard Hervig. However, in 1984 I became immersed in the then new field of MIDI and in 1987 opened a studio, Mouse Studios, in Burlington, NC. I remember how miraculous my little 8086 seemed at the time, sequencing four tracks at 24 clocks per quarter note, with its crude 16 color graphics and cryptic commands in BASIC. I recorded its output on a vacuum-tube Ampex recorder!
Over the past ten years I have given recitals both as a pianist and composer, participated in various music activities from rock bands to musical comedies, Gregorian Chant, delved into Industrial and Techno, been a recording engineer and studio musician for everything from Country and Western to Rap. I have performed freeform electronic improvisations along the Klaus Schultz line, as well as giving recitals of straightforward "classical" music at the Carrboro Art Center. I think I've done just about everything short of Elvis impersonation.
Most of my music has a modal, neoclassical surface, and deliberately intends to be acessible and effective. Yet I believe in a contrapuntal and formal discipline, and a pungency of modal interplay, which I hope distinguishes my work from "New Age" repetitive banalites. I am very interested in the formal potential of polymodal and polymetric interplay which is somewhat related to, but distinguishable from minimalism. However, many people are surprised when I turn around and write music that is atonal, aleoratic, or highly abstract in some way. It's as if there are several composers inside my head. (Maybe there are!) But this is because I see each piece as its own organism, which forms according to its own logic. This is especially true when the music supports another form, such as a theatrical work or film score.
At this point in my development, I essentially have no technical impediments as a composer. I have achieved a place where I can effectively compose any type of piece I wish to. The question now is what piece, and why? I want to make music which somehow elucidates a spirit which is universal and genuine, which arises from some archetypal wellspring. And as if that weren't enough, I want it to exhibit an ingenious intellectual discipline as well! A tall order, to be sure, but enough for one liftime.
Only a small fraction of my musical work has ever been performed or recorded. I am highly perfectionistic, and although I compose constantly I have so far released very little. This is changing as the computer has allowed me to rescue, organise and refine past efforts becalmed in a sea of paperwork. Soon I will have a web site up which will present MP3 files and downloadable Postcript files of "freeware" music, as well as a list of scores available by E-mail.
I am most interested in writing orchestral music, music for original dance and theater works,film and video, and music for pedagogical purposes. I can write very quickly when the need arises and the idea catches fire. I am currently working on a piano quintet and a new symphony.
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