American composer George Crumb died at his home yesterday. He was 92 years old. George Crumb (b. 1929) he studied at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. He majored in music at the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts (University of Charleston), where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1950. He obtained his M.Mus. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1952 and then briefly studied as a Fulbright fellow at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin before returning to the United States to study at the University of Michigan.
Crumb earned his living primarily from teaching. His first teaching job was at a college in Virginia, before he became professor of piano and composition at the University of Colorado in 1958. In 1965 he began a long association with the University of Pennsylvania, becoming Annenberg Professor of the Humanities in 1983.
Crumb retired from teaching in 1997, though in early 2002 he was appointed with David Burge to a joint residency at Arizona State University. He has continued to compose and was one of the most frequently performed composers in te United States. Crumb is the winner of Grammy and Pulitzer Prizes. Many of Crumb’s works include programmatic, symbolic, mystical and theatrical elements, which are often reflected in his beautiful and meticulously notated scores.
George Crumb’s music is published by C.F. Peters and a series of recordings, supervised by the composer, have been issued on Bridge Records.
