Nationality: American

Contemporary American

TURRIN, Joseph

Image courtesy of Discogs, https://www.discogs.com/artist/2190264-Joseph-Turrin

Born in Clifton, NJ, January 4th, 1947

Joseph Turrin is an American composer, orchestrator, conductor, pianist, and teacher.
As a composer, Turrin’s work spans multiple genres, including orchestral works, chamber music, and music for film and stage.¹

Biography
Composer’s website

Pieces

Illuminations

Contemporary American Cambodian

UNG, Chinary

Photo courtesy of UC San Diego

Born in Takeo, Nov 24, 1942

Chinary Ung is an American composer of Cambodian descent. Ung was first exposed to Western classical music in his late teens, after which he pursued pursued the art form formally.
- Ung was one of the first graduates of the Ecole de Musique, Phnom Penh and received a degree in clarinet performance.
In 1964, Ung emigrated to the U.S. He received a DMA with distinction from Columbia University (1974), where his principal composition teacher was Chou Wen-chung.
Regarding his music, Ung has described it in the following way: “If East is yellow, and West is blue, then my music is green.” His compositions blend Asian aesthetics with contemporary classical techniques.²

Learn More
Biography via the composer’s website

Pieces

Water Rings

Contemporary American

UNGAR, Jay

Jay Ungar and Molly Mason; photo courtesy of the composer's website

Born in The Bronx, New York on Nov. 14, 1946

Jay Ungar is a folk musician and composer best known for his original work, Ashokan Farewell, which was used as the theme song for the Ken Burns docuseries, The Civil War.

Pieces

Ashokan Farewell

Pieces

Ashokan Farewell

20th Century American

WALKER, George

Photograph of George Walker courtesy of the composer's website

Born in Washington, DC, June 27, 1922
Died in Montclair, NJ, Aug 23, 2018

Walker studied at Oberlin, Eastman, and Curtis. His teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Rudolf Serkin, and Robert Casadesus.¹
- Walker began studying at Oberlin at the age of 14, becoming the institution’s youngest student.
- Walker was also the first Black student to earn a doctorate at Eastman in 1956.²
Walker had a distinguished academic career; his longest appointment was at Rutgers University from 1969-92.³
- The stability Walker found in academia paved the way for greater capacity to compose. However, it came at a cost. He had originally pursued a career as a concert pianist but found consistent work too hard to come by due to institutional racism.⁴
Among his many professional honors, George Walker was the first African-American composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1996 for his vocal and orchestral piece Lilacs.⁵
As a composer, Walker wrote most extensively for string instruments, though his oeuvre also includes concertos for trombone and piano, piano sonatas, sinfonias, brass and wind quintets, song cycles, and more.
Walker cannot easily be associated with other composers because his music is so distinctive. He wrote each piece to be unique, without any resemblance to a previous work.
- He also frequently quoted spirituals, Jazz, and folk music in his works, but only with incredible subtlety.⁶

Learn More

Obituary article from NPR

Sources

Guthrie P. Ramsey, “Walker, George,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 12, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000029829.
Elizabeth de Brito, “Composer of the Week: George Walker,” BBC Music Magazine Vol. 30, No. 10 (2022), 60-63.
Guthrie P. Ramsey, “Walker, George,” Grove Music Online.
Elizabeth de Brito, “Composer of the Week: George Walker,” BBC Music Magazine.
“Biographical Information,” George Walker, accessed August 12, 2021, http://georgetwalker.com/bio.html.
Elizabeth de Brito, “Composer of the Week: George Walker,” BBC Music Magazine.

Pieces

20th Century American German

WEILL, Kurt

Photo of Kurt Weill ca. 1929, courtesy of The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music

Born in Dessau, Germany, March 2, 1900
Died in New York, April 3, 1950

Kurt Weill [pronounced “vile”] began composing at a young age and was arranging family concerts of his own works by the time he was 12 years old.
- Fun fact – Weill’s family had lived in Germany since the 14th century.³
For a brief period of time, Weill was enrolled at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where he had occasional sessions with Engelbert Humperdinck. Weill eventually took up composition lessons more successfully with Ferruccio Busoni.
Weill’s initial rise to fame took place in the mid-1920s with the premieres of his first two operas, Der Protagonist and Royal Palace. Around this same time, Weill met Bertolt Brecht, who would become an important collaborator for the composer. Their first joint work was the “songspiel,” The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
In 1933, Weill was forced to flee Nazi Germany and moved to Paris, then London, and finally to New York in 1935, where he lived for the rest of his life. His music has been categorized into two periods related to this move, the more dissonant and confrontational “first period” taking place during his time in Germany, and his more lyrical, appeasing “second period” taking place when he was living in America.
- Weill’s music for the stage was revolutionary in that he did not acknowledge a difference between opera and musical theater. He combined classical traditions and popular music genres in his works and displayed remarkable versatility.
Weill was married to Austrian-born actress and singer Lotte Lenya, who performed many of Weill’s works.⁴

Learn More
The Life & Career of Kurt Weill – Timeline via the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music

Short biography via the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music

Pieces

Symphony No. 1, “Berliner Sinfonie”

20th Century American Czech

WEINBERGER, Jaromír

Born in Prague, Jan 8, 1896
Died in St Petersburg, FL, Aug 8, 1967⁵

Biography

Pieces

Contemporary American

WHITACRE, Eric

Born in Reno, Nevada, January 2, 1970

Composer Website

Pieces

The Seal Lullaby

20th Century American

WHITE, Clarence Cameron

Born in Clarksville, TN, Aug 10, 1880
New York, June 30, 1960

White was an African-American composer and violinist.
White studied at Oberlin and in Europe, where his teachers included Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
White toured frequently as a violinist, with his wife, collaborative pianist Beatrice Warrick White.
White taught at West Virginia State College and was the Director of Music at the the Hampton Institute in Virginia.⁶

Biography from the Library of Congress

Biography from The African American Registry

Pieces

Contemporary American

WILLIAMS, John

Born in New York, NY, 8 Feb 1932⁷

Composer Website

Pieces

Contemporary American

WYERS, Giselle

Photograph of Giselle Wyers courtesy of the composer's website.

Giselle Wyers is a composer and conductor who specializes in choral music.
Wyers is the Chair of the Voice / Choral department at the University of Washington, and holds the institution’s Donald E. Petersen Endowed Professor of Choral Music.
Wyers holds degrees from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Westminster Choir College and the University of Arizona.⁸

Composer website

Pieces

A Lonely Land

Contemporary American

YORK, Andrew

Photo by Christine Lang; courtesy of the composer's website

Born in Atlanta, GA in 1958.

Andrew York is a GRAMMY Award-winning classical guitarist and composer whose music blends the styles of both ancient and modern.
York grew up in a family of musicians, where gatherings often included American and English folk music as well as traditional Celtic songs.
York spent 16 years as a member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, from 1990-2006, writing many compositions and arrangements for the ensemble.⁹

Learn More
Composer’s website

Pieces

Contemporary American Chinese

ZHOU Long

Photograph of Zhou Long courtesy of White Snake Records

Born in Beijing, July 8, 1953

Zhou is the composer’s surname. It is appropriate to refer to him as Zhou Long or Dr. Zhou.

Pronunciation: IPA [dʒoʊ lɔŋ]
Pronunciation: Phonetic “jo long”

A guide for pronouncing Chinese names

Dr. Zhou is a contemporary Chinese-American composer whose music combines Chinese folk influences and modernist classical influences.
Zhou grew during the Cultural Revolution, when Western influences (including music) were discouraged. For this reason, he spent part of his childhood working on a state farm.
Zhou studied at the Beijing Conservatory when it was reopened after the Cultural Revolution, and he completed his doctorate at Columbia University.
Zhou teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas Conservatory of Music.
Zhou is married to the composer Chen Yi.¹⁰
Biography from Oxford University Press

Pieces

Contemporary American

ZWILICH, Ellen Taaffe

Image courtesy of the composer's website

Born in Miami, April 30, 1939

American composer and violinist Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (pronounced “tayf ZWIL-ik”) is one of the nation’s most frequently played living composers.
Zwilich pursued her doctorate at Julliard, and in 1975, she became the first woman to earn a DMA in composition from the institution. Previously, she had been a member of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski.
Zwilich is a prolific composer in virtually all media:

“Concise, economical and clean in texture, Zwilich’s music might be classified under the rubric ‘neo-classic’ were it not for its very ‘neo-romantic’ expressive force.”
Grove Music Online

One interesting period of writing in particular – Beginning in the 1980s, Zwilich tasked herself with writing a series of concertos for the more neglected orchestral instruments, including the trombone, flute, oboe, and bassoon.
Fun fact– Zwilich was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1983. She won the prestigious award for her Symphony No. 1, which helped catapult her international career.¹¹
- The composer’s list of additional accolades is impressively long and includes the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize, the Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was also the first Composer’s Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall, and she was designated Musical America’s Composer of the Year in 1999. ¹²

Learn More

Composer’s website
Short biography from the Library of Congress