Barney Childs was an American composer and teacher.

Born in Spokane, Washington

Spokane, Washington

Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

, he taught and composed avant-garde music

Avant-garde music

Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....

 and literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 at universities in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

Music

He was a musical autodidact till his association in the 1950s with Leonard Ratner and Elliot Carter in New York and with Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

 and Carlos Chavez

Carlos Chávez

Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...

 at Tanglewood

Tanglewood

Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...

. He was associated later with double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

 player Bertram Turetzky

Bertram Turetzky

Bertram Turetzky is a contemporary American double bass soloist, teacher, and author of The Contemporary Contrabass , a book that looked at a number of new and interesting ways of playing the double bass including featuring it as a solo performance vehicle with no other instrumental...

 and clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 player Phillip Rehfeldt. He wrote several pieces for these and other players, often using extended technique

Extended technique

Extended techniques are performance techniques used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional techniques of singing, or of playing musical instruments to obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbres....

s. Much of his music employs improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

 and indeterminacy

Indeterminacy in music

Indeterminacy in music, which began early in the twentieth century in the music of Charles Ives, and was continued in the 1930s by Henry Cowell and carried on by his student, the experimental music composer John Cage beginning in 1951 , came to refer to the movement which grew up around Cage...

 (see his "Roachville Project," 1967). However, his influences are diverse and include jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 artists, John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, 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"...

, and Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...

. Childs won the Koussevitzky Award

Koussevitzky

Koussvitzky is a surname, may refer to:*Moshe Koussevitzky , Belarusian-born cantor*Sergei Koussevitzky , Russian-born conductor...

 at Tanglewood

Tanglewood

Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...

 in 1954.

Education and Teaching Career

Trained originally as a literary scholar, Childs earned a Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 (1959) and remained active as an editor and writer of poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 (see ...and other poems, 1955). He had previously studied at Deep Springs College

Deep Springs College

Deep Springs is a private, all-male , alternative college in Deep Springs, California, in the United States. A two-year college, the institution currently aims for a student body size of 26, though the number is occasionally lower...

, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He taught at the University of Arizona

University of Arizona

The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

, where he was mentor to the young Joseph Byrd

Joseph Byrd

Joseph Byrd was the leader of The United States of America, a notable rock band from the 1960s, as well as the psychedelic group Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, of cult fame through their release The American Metaphysical Circus...

, Deep Springs College

Deep Springs College

Deep Springs is a private, all-male , alternative college in Deep Springs, California, in the United States. A two-year college, the institution currently aims for a student body size of 26, though the number is occasionally lower...

, where he served as Dean, Wisconsin College Conservatory, and Goldsmiths, University of London. From 1974 until his death, he was professor of composition and music literature at the University of Redlands

University of Redlands

The University of Redlands is a private liberal arts and sciences university located in Redlands, California. The university's campus sits on near downtown Redlands. The university was founded in 1907 and was associated with the American Baptist Church. The land for the university was donated by...

 in Redlands

Redlands

-Australia:*Redland City, Queensland*SCECGS Redlands, Sydney*Electoral district of Redlands-United Kingdom:*Redlands , country estate of Keith Richards, venue of the Redlands drugs bust*Redlands *Redlands...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. He also taught literature and creative writing at the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies

Johnston Center for Integrative Studies

The Johnston Center for Integrative Studies is an alternative education program offered by the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. The Johnston Center focuses on interdisciplinary education, in which each student designs the curriculum for his or her personal program of study...

, located on the University of Redlands campus.

Childs died with Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...

in 2000.