Composition has taken Alan Geyer (b.1985) through three academic programs in the humanities. He earned a B.I.S. in piano performance, philosophy, and literature from Georgia State University, magna cum laude, where he studied piano with Brandt Fredriksen. As an undergraduate he played in numerous recitals and masterclasses in the U.S. and in Europe.

 

Geyer then obtained an M.A. in Engaged Humanities from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where he regularly presented his compositions within the context of lectures about music and its relationship to the unconscious. This work informed Geyer's thesis on the crisis of scientific realism and the way in which an aesthetic orientation to scientific knowledge could act as a potential epistemic solution. In 2015 his thesis was presented as a paper at the Yale Divinity School during the joint IAAP/IAJS conference.

 

Geyer continued his studies in philosophy and aesthetics at St. John's College, Santa Fe, where he earned an MA in Liberal Arts. The program's deep study of primary texts led him to a two year study of Palestrina's work during which he realized that certain possibilities of the master's style could be powerfully integrated into his contemporary compositional practice.

 

Composing and living off-grid in rural northern New Mexico, Geyer worked as a freelance editor and co-founded Troens Spring Literary Services. He recently moved to Amherst, Massachusetts with his wife and daughter.  He studies composition with Justin Dello Joio and Melinda Wagner.