Peter Child
Encyclopedia
Peter Burlingham Child (born 6 May 1953, Great Yarmouth
, England) is an American composer, teacher, and musical analyst
. He is Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) and a composer in residence with the New England Philharmonic.
. He began attending Keele University
in Staffordshire, England, but transferred to Reed College
in Portland, Oregon
in 1973 in a junior-year exchange program. He earned his BA in music at Reed in 1975. Child then studied Kamatic music in Madras
, India for one year on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
. In 1978 he won a fellowship
to the Berkshire Music Center
in Lenox
, Massachusetts, where he studied under Jacob Druckman
. In 1981 he received his PhD in musical composition from Brandeis University
, where his teachers included Arthur Berger
, Martin Boykan
, and Seymour Shifrin.
Child taught at Brandeis and chaired MIT's department of Music and Theater Arts from 1996 to 1999.
He was the American Symphony Orchestra League – Meet the Composer "Music Alive" composer in residence with the Albany Symphony Orchestra
from 2005 to 2008. Child wrote five new compositions for that orchestra, including Washington Park, a work inspired by the city's Washington Park Historic District
.
, computer synthesis
, voice, and chamber groups
. His compositional style has been compared to Charles Ives
, Benjamin Britten
, and Gustav Mahler
. Among his works are Embers (1984), a one-act chamber opera based on the play
by Samuel Beckett
, and Clare Cycle (1984), four settings from the poetry of John Clare
.
Among the musical ensembles that have performed his music are the John Oliver Chorale, the Pro Arte Orchestra, the Lydian String Quartet, Collage, Parnassus, New York New Music, New Millenium Ensemble, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble
, Lontano
(Great Britain), Interensemble (Italy), Speak Percussion (Australia), Emory University Wind Ensemble and Percussion Ensemble, and Boston Musica Viva
.
Child's music has been commissioned by the Harvard Musical Association
, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University
, and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Massachusetts resident Peter Grinnell Gombosi commissioned him to write several compositions for significant events in the Gombosi family's life, including a string quartet
commissioned in honor of the birth of Gombosi's son Andrew.
, the 1983 New Works Prize from the New England Conservatory, and the 1983 New England Composers Prize from the League-International Society for Contemporary Music
, Boston.
Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...
, England) is an American composer, teacher, and musical analyst
Musical analysis
Musical analysis is the attempt to answer the question how does this music work?. The method employed to answer this question, and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst, and according to the purpose of the analysis. According to Ian Bent , analysis is "an...
. He is Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) and a composer in residence with the New England Philharmonic.
Education and career
Child took his first composition lessons at the age of 12 with Bernard BarrellBernard Barrell
Bernard Clements Barrell was an English musician, music educator and composer. He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, England and studied at Trinity College of Music, London...
. He began attending Keele University
Keele University
Keele University is a campus university near Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as an experimental college dedicated to a broad curriculum and interdisciplinary study, Keele is most notable for pioneering the dual honours degree in Britain...
in Staffordshire, England, but transferred to Reed College
Reed College
Reed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus located in Portland's Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a forested canyon wilderness...
in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
in 1973 in a junior-year exchange program. He earned his BA in music at Reed in 1975. Child then studied Kamatic music in Madras
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, India for one year on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
. In 1978 he won a fellowship
Fellowship
Fellowship may refer to:* An academic position: see fellow* A merit-based scholarship, or form of academic financial aid* Fellowship , a period of medical training after a residency...
to the Berkshire Music Center
Tanglewood Music Center
The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops designed to provide an intense training and networking experience...
in Lenox
Lenox, Massachusetts
Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. Set in Western Massachusetts, it is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,077 at the 2000 census. Where the town has a border with Stockbridge is the site of Tanglewood, summer...
, Massachusetts, where he studied under Jacob Druckman
Jacob Druckman
Jacob Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de...
. In 1981 he received his PhD in musical composition from Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
, where his teachers included Arthur Berger
Arthur Berger
Arthur Victor Berger was an American composer who has been described as a New Mannerist.-Biography:Born in New York City, of Jewish descent, Berger studied as an undergraduate at New York University, during which time he joined the Young Composer's Group, as a graduate student under Walter Piston...
, Martin Boykan
Martin Boykan
Martin Boykan was born on April 12, 1931 in New York City. He is an American composer known for his chamber music as well as music for larger ensembles. He married the silverpoint artist Susan Schwalb in 1983.-Biography:...
, and Seymour Shifrin.
Child taught at Brandeis and chaired MIT's department of Music and Theater Arts from 1996 to 1999.
He was the American Symphony Orchestra League – Meet the Composer "Music Alive" composer in residence with the Albany Symphony Orchestra
Albany Symphony Orchestra
The Albany Symphony Orchestra is a professional symphony orchestra based in Albany, New York. The upcoming season will mark the orchestra's 78th....
from 2005 to 2008. Child wrote five new compositions for that orchestra, including Washington Park, a work inspired by the city's Washington Park Historic District
Washington Park Historic District (Albany, New York)
Washington Park in Albany, New York is the city's premier park and the site of many festivals and gatherings. As public property it dates back to the city charter in 1686, and has seen many uses including that of gunpowder storage, square/parade grounds, and cemetery...
.
Composer
Child composes music for orchestra, chorusChoir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, computer synthesis
Computer music
Computer music is a term that was originally used within academia to describe a field of study relating to the applications of computing technology in music composition; particularly that stemming from the Western art music tradition...
, voice, and chamber groups
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
. His compositional style has been compared to Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
, Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, and Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
. Among his works are Embers (1984), a one-act chamber opera based on the play
Embers
Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957 and first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack MacGowran – for whom the play was specially written – as “Henry”, Kathleen Michael as “Ada” and Patrick Magee as “Riding Master”...
by Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, and Clare Cycle (1984), four settings from the poetry of John Clare
John Clare
John Clare was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among...
.
Among the musical ensembles that have performed his music are the John Oliver Chorale, the Pro Arte Orchestra, the Lydian String Quartet, Collage, Parnassus, New York New Music, New Millenium Ensemble, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble
Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble
The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble is an American ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the group was established by composer David Stock in 1976. It has premiered over 200 works and is a major regional cultural attraction...
, Lontano
Odaline de la Martinez
Odaline de la Martinez is a Cuban-American composer and conductor, currently residing in the UK. She is the artistic director of , a London-based contemporary music ensemble which she co-founded in 1976 with New Zealander flautist , and was the first woman to conduct at the BBC Promenade Concerts ...
(Great Britain), Interensemble (Italy), Speak Percussion (Australia), Emory University Wind Ensemble and Percussion Ensemble, and Boston Musica Viva
Boston Musica Viva
Boston Musica Viva is a Boston, Massachusetts-based music ensemble founded by its Music Director, Richard Pittman, in 1969 and dedicated to contemporary music.-Composers and compositions:...
.
Child's music has been commissioned by the Harvard Musical Association
Harvard Musical Association
The Harvard Musical Association is a private charitable organization founded by Harvard University graduates in 1837 for the purposes of advancing musical culture and literacy, both at the University and in the city of Boston. Though initially a spin-off of the Pierian Sodality, the Association...
, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Massachusetts resident Peter Grinnell Gombosi commissioned him to write several compositions for significant events in the Gombosi family's life, including a string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
commissioned in honor of the birth of Gombosi's son Andrew.
Awards
Child is the recipient of many music awards, including the 1994 Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize awarded by the MIT Council for the Arts, the 2001 Music of Changes Award, and the 2004 Levitan Award in the Humanities from MIT. His compositions have earned the 1978 Margaret Grant Memorial Prize from Tanglewood, the 1979 First Prize from East and West Artists, the 1980 Recording Prize from WGBH RadioWGBH (FM)
WGBH is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts. WGBH is a member station of NPR and PRI. The license-holder is the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns WGBH-TV and WGBX-TV....
, the 1983 New Works Prize from the New England Conservatory, and the 1983 New England Composers Prize from the League-International Society for Contemporary Music
International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.ISCM was established in 1922, in Salzburg. Its core activity is the World Music Days Festival, held every year at a different location. The festival includes cutting edge productions...
, Boston.