This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2010) |
Peter Mennin | |
---|---|
Birth name | Peter Mennini |
Born | Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S. | May 17, 1923
Died | June 17, 1983 60) New York City, U.S. | (aged
Occupation(s) | Composer, teacher |
Peter Mennin (born Mennini; May 17, 1923 – June 17, 1983) was a prominent American composer, teacher and administrator. In 1958, he was named Director of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and in 1962 became President of the Juilliard School, a position he held until his death in 1983. Under his leadership, Juilliard moved from Claremont Avenue to its present location at Lincoln Center. Mennin is responsible for the addition of drama and dance departments at Juilliard. He also started the Master Class Program, and brought many artists to teach including Maria Callas, Pierre Fournier and others.
Peter Mennini was born on May 17, 1923, in Erie, Pennsylvania. Mennin was the son of Italian immigrants Amalia (née Benacci) and Attilio Mennini and the younger brother of composer Louis Mennini. Musically gifted from an early age, he started his first orchestral piece at eleven and completed his first symphony (out of nine he would eventually write) before his 19th birthday. He began his studies at the Oberlin Conservatory with Norman Lockwood when he was 16, but left in 1941 to join the U. S. Army Air Force. He continued his studies with Howard Hanson at the Eastman School of Music, where he received his BA and master's degree in 1945.
His Third Symphony, finished the day he turned 23 and initially written for his PhD requirements at Eastman, immediately catapulted him to music prominence. The work was performed by the New York Philharmonic the following year, and it led Mennin's appointment to the composition faculty of The Juilliard School. It was a runner up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. Mennin led the first artistic exchange with the Soviet Union in 1958, where he spent six weeks. He received two Guggenheim fellowships for Music composition, in 1949 and 1957.
Mennin wrote nine symphonies, several concertos, and numerous works for wind band, chorus, and other ensembles. His style became more chromatic and astringent with time, but was always essentially tonal, relying heavily on polyphony. [1]
His work received renewed attention in the CD era; all of his symphonies have been recorded, with the exception of the first two symphonies, which were withdrawn. His String Quartet No 2, premiered by the Juilliard String Quartet in New York City on February 24, 1952, was subsequently recorded on Columbia Records. [2] But his music is seldom heard live in concert halls. His centenary year is being marked by the world premiere of the Aria from his unfinished Violin Concerto at the Aspen Music Festival in August 2023. [3]
His notable students include Van Cliburn, Jacob Druckman, Richard Danielpour, Karl Korte, Charles L. Bestor, Jack Behrens, and Claire Polin. [4] Juilliard awards an annual Peter Mennin prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music.
William Howard Schuman was an American composer and arts administrator.
Robert Eugene Ward was an American composer who is best remembered for his opera The Crucible (1961) after the 1953 play of the same name by Arthur Miller. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for that opera in 1962.
David Leo Diamond was an American composer of classical music. He is considered one of the preeminent American composers of his generation. Many of his works are tonal or modestly modal. His early compositions are typically triadic, often with widely spaced harmonies, giving them a distinctly American tone, but some of his works are consciously French in style. His later style became more chromatic.
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, teacher, and writer on music. He had initially started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved further towards more complex harmonies and postromanticism, and finally the twelve-tone serialism of the Second Viennese School. Sessions' friendship with Arnold Schoenberg influenced this, but he would modify the technique to develop a unique style involving rows to supply melodic thematic material, while composing the subsidiary parts in a free and dissonant manner.
Peter Racine Fricker was an English composer, among the first to establish his career entirely after the Second World War. He lived in the US for the last thirty years of his life. Fricker wrote over 160 works in all the main genres excepting opera. He was a descendant of the French playwright Racine.
James Ehnes, is a Canadian concert violinist and violist.
Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
Richard Danielpour is an American composer and academic, currently affiliated with the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Robert Nathaniel Mann was a violinist, composer, conductor, and founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, as well as a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, the first violinist at Juilliard, served on the school's string quartet for over fifty years until his retirement in 1997.
Eric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher.
Joel Krosnick is an American cellist who has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout the world for over 40 years. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet from 1974 to 2016, he performed the great quartet literature throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Walter Hendl was an American conductor, composer and pianist.
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri was a Brazilian composer.
Martin Boykan was an American composer known for his chamber music as well as music for larger ensembles.
Avner Dorman is an Israeli-born composer, educator and conductor.
Paul Zukofsky was an American violinist and conductor known for his work in the field of contemporary classical music.
Joseph Wood was an American composer and music educator. He was a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he taught music theory and composition from 1950 until his retirement in 1985. He performed and conducted widely, and his compositions for piano, chamber groups, and orchestra were performed around the world.
Fabian Müller is a Swiss composer.
Sebastian Fagerlund is a Finnish composer. He is described as “a post-modern impressionist whose sound landscapes can be heard as ecstatic nature images which, however, are always inner images, landscapes of the mind”. Echoes of Western culture, Asian musical traditions, and heavy metal have all been detected in his music.