Herschel Garfein is active as a composer, librettist and stage director.  He is presently at work on the music and libretto for the operatic adaptation of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. [http://rosandguil.com/], the first-ever operatic adaptation of a Stoppard play. Excerpts have been heard on New York City Opera's VOX 2006, and in a 2008 workshop directed by Mark Morris. Garfein wrote the libretto for composer Robert Aldridge's Elmer Gantry (based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis).  Elmer Gantry premiered to rave reviews in 2007 at Nashville Opera.  Six subsequent productions are now planned, beginning with Florentine Opera Milwaukee in March 2010. Elmer Gantry was the subject of a front-page feature article in The New York Times Arts & Leisure section ("Behold! An Operatic Miracle" 1/20/08). Garfein's libretto was also featured in an Opera News cover article ("Opera's Book Club" August, 2008).

Richard Dyer, writing in the Boston Globe, has called Mr. Garfein "a triple-threat man. A strong composer, as we knew; a strong librettist, with a knack for the poetry of plain English, and a strong stage director." Garfein's previous music/theater credits include: the dance trilogy Mythologies (Brooklyn Academy of Music / Theatre Royale de la Monnaie), the evening-length theater piece Sueños (Boston Musica Viva), and incidental music for Troilus and Cressida (Theater for a New Audience). He has had the honor of collaborating with great theater artists including mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, choreographer Mark Morris, director Sir Peter Hall, and experimental theater troupe Mabou Mines. His concert works include American Steel for the Alabama Symphony, a String Quartet for The Lark Quartet, and Places to Live for the Boston Classical Orchestra (named by the Boston Globe as one of the "year 2000's best.") Ahead are a song-cycle for mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera, as well as commissioned texts for the Topeka Symphony and the Susquehanna Valley Chorale.

Mr. Garfein received his musical training at Yale University, New England Conservatory, and the Experimental Music Studio at MIT. He has received grants and awards from: The National Endowment for the Arts, The Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fellowship (twice), The National Institute of Opera/Musical Theater, the Jerome Foundation, American Dance Festival, the Sundance Institute, and the MacDowell Colony. At NYU Steinhardt, Mr. Garfein teaches music composition, the graduate seminar in Script Analysis (for the Program in Vocal Performance), as well as undergraduate music theory.  In 2006, he formed a partnership between NYU Steinhardt and New York City Opera, resulting in a unique chamber ensemble called VOX@NYU, in which the most advanced singers in the Classical Voice program prepare excerpts from new American operas.  They are coached by the creators of those works, and later present them in a master class at New York City Opera. This program was recently the subject of an article in Classical Singer magazine ("Bridging the Transition"; Sept. 2008).