(b Philadelphia, 26 June 1928). American composer. He studied with Persichetti and Mennin at the Juilliard School (1949-56), with Copland at Tanglewood (1949-50) and in Paris (1954). He has taught at the Juilliard School and, since 1972, at Brooklyn College. His works of the 1950s and 1960s are generally of vocal or instrumental chamber music, including tape in the important Animus series (1966-9). Since the early 1970s he has produced sophisticated, characterful orchestral scores; the first, Windows (1972), won a Pulitzer Prize; Mirage (1976), Aureole (1979) and Prism (1980) quote from other composers' works, creating a ‘new Romanticism’.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.