Crumb George
Born in 1929 in Charleston (West Virginia), he studied at the University of Illinois with Eugene Weigel, the Berliner Hochschule für Musik with Boris Blacher and the University of Michigan with Ross Lee Finney. He received scholarships from a number of foundations, including the Elizabeth Croft at the Berkshire Music Center (1955), Fulbright (1955–56), Rockefeller (1964), National Institute for Arts and Letters (1967), Guggenheim (1967 and 1973), Fromm (1973) and Ford (1976). In 1964–65, he was composer-in-residence at the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo. From 1965 until his retirement in 1997, he was professor of composition at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
For his artistic and teaching activities, Crumb has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize (for Echoes of Time and the River, 1968), UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (1971), Koussevitzky Recording Award (1971), and Cannes Classical Award (1998).
In 2001, he received a Grammy Award for best contemporary composition recording (Star-Child). Since 1975, George Crumb has been a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, honorary member of the Deutsche Akademie der Künste, and a honorary doctor of six universities.
S e l e c t e d w o r k s ( s i n c e 1 9 8 5 ): An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Images III) for amplified flute and percussion (1986), Federico’s Little Songs for Children for soprano, four flutes and harp (1986), Zeitgeist (Tableaux vivants) for two amplified pianos (1988), Easter Dawning for carillon (1991), Quest for guitar and chamber ensemble (1994), Mundus canis for guitar and percussion (1998), Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik for amplified piano (2001), Unto the Hills for voice, amplified piano and percussion quartet (2002), Otherwordly Reso- nances for two amplified pianos (2002), River of Life for soprano, piano and percussion quartet (2003),Winds of Destiny for soprano, piano and percussion quartet (2004), Voices from a Forgotten World for soprano, piano and percussion quartet (2006), Voices from the Morning of the Earth for soprano, piano and percussion quartet (2006).
