Peter Child

Composer in Residence

Peter Child is Professor of Music at MIT, where he chaired the department of Music and Theater Arts from 1996 to 1999. He joined Reed College in 1973 through an exchange scholarship from Keele University in England and received his B.A. in music from Reed in 1975. After studying Karnatic music in Madras for a year through a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship (1975-76), he entered the graduate program at Brandeis University and earned his Ph.D. in musical composition in 1981. His principal composition teachers were William Albright, Arthur Berger, Martin Boykan, Jacob Druckman (Tanglewood) and Seymour Shifrin.

Child won the 2001 Music of Changes Composition Award, which culminates in a commission and a concert in Los Angeles devoted to his music. He was a recipient of a 2000 commission from the Harvard Musical Association and a 1998 commission from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University. In 1994 the Council for the Arts at MIT awarded Peter Child the Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize. He has been honored by two Composition Fellowships from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation in 1986 and 1989, as well as fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and the Composers' Conference. The Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities awarded him four 'New Works' commissions in conjunction with the Boston Musica Viva, the New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble, the MIT Experimental Music Studio, and the Cantata Singers. His compositions have also been awarded prizes from Tanglewood (Margaret Grant Memorial Prize, 1978), East and West Artists (First Prize, 1979), WGBH Radio (Recording Prize, 1980), New England Conservatory ('New Works' Prize, 1983), and League-ISCM, Boston (New England Composers Prize, 1983). Recordings of some of Child's music have been released on New World, CRI, Neuma, Rivoalto and Centaur compact discs. In addition to his compositional work, Child has published papers concerning music by Shostakovich and Bartok in Music Analysis and College Music Symposium.

Peter Child has written music in many different genres, including music for orchestra, chorus, computer synthesis, voice, and a wide variety of chamber groups. Ensembles that have performed his music include the John Oliver Chorale, the Pro Arte Orchestra, the Lydian String Quartet, Collage, Parnassus, New York New Music, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Lontano (Great Britain), Interensemble (Italy), Speak Percussion (Australia), and many others.

This and other information is available directly from Peter Child's website.