William Kraft (born 1923, in
Chicago,
Illinois
) is a
composer, conductor, teacher,
and percussionist.
Biography
Undergrad and Graduate School Years (1947-1954)
Mr. Kraft was awarded two Anton Seidl Fellowships at
Columbia University, graduating with a
bachelor’s degree cum laude in 1951 and a master’s degree in 1954.
He studied composition with Jack Beeson and
Henry Cowell, orchestration with Henry Brant,
percussion with Morris Goldenberg, timpani from Saul Goodman, and
conducting with Rudolph Thomas and Fritz Zweig.
During his years in New York, Kraft was also active as a freelance
musician and had the privilege of working with some of the most
well known musicians of the mid-twentieth century. Kraft thoroughly
enjoyed doing freelance work. Among his gigs, he played as an extra
percussionist for the
Metropolitan
Opera and played percussion and conducted for Ondine.
In 1954, Kraft joined the
Dallas
Symphony. After only one season there, he moved to Los
Angeles.
Los Angeles Philharmonic Years (1955-1985) and thereafter
He took a position with the
Los
Angeles Philharmonic beginning in the 1955/56 season. He spent
25 years in the orchestra, the first eight as a member of the
percussion section, and the remaining 17 as principal timpanist.
Kraft was also the assistant conductor of the orchestra for 3
seasons under
Zubin Mehta. From 1981-85,
Kraft was the Composer-in-Residence for the orchestra, during which
time he was also responsible for the founding and directing of the
Philharmonic’s New Music Group.
During his
early years in Los Angeles, he organized and directed the Los
Angeles Percussion Ensemble, a group which played a vital part in
premieres and recordings of works by such renowned composers as
Ginastera, Harrison, Krenek, Stravinsky,
Varese
, and many others. As percussion soloist, he
performed the American premieres of
Stockhausen’s
Zyklus and
Boulez’s
Le Marteau sans Maître, in addition
to recording
Histoire du soldat under Stravinsky’s
direction.
He served
as chairman of the composition department and holder of the Corwin
Chair at the University of California, Santa
Barbara
until he retired in June 2002.
Commissions and Awards
Mr. Kraft
has received numerous awards and commissions, including two Kennedy
Center Friedheim Awards (first prize in 1990 for Veils and
Variations for Horn and Orchestra, and second prize in 1984
for Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra); two Guggenheim Fellowships; two Ford
Foundation commissions; fellowships from the Huntington Hartford
Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Arts; the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
Music Award; the Norlin/MacDowell Fellowship; the Club 100
Distinguished Artist of Los Angeles Award; the ASCAP Award, the
NACUSA Award; the Eva Judd O’Meara Award; first place in the
Contemporary Record Society Competition; commissions from the
Library of
Congress
, U.S.
Air Force
Band,
St. Paul Chamber
Orchestra,
Kronos Quartet, Voices
of Change, the Schoenberg Institute, consortium of Speculum
Musicae/San Francisco Contemporary Music Players/Contemporary Music
Forum, The
Boston Pops
Orchestra, consortium of
Pacific
Symphony/Spokane Symphony/Tucson Symphony, and the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, among others.
His works have been performed by many major American orchestras as
well as those in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, Australia, Israel,
and the USSR. Mr. Kraft’s
Contextures: Riots – Decade ’60
(1967) has been choreographed and performed by both the
Scottish National Ballet and the
Minnesota Dance Company. In 1986,
United Air Lines commissioned a work
expressly to accompany a lumetric sculpture by Michael Hayden
titled
Sky’s the Limit, for their pedestrian passageway at
Chicago-O’Hare International Airport. In November 1990, Mr. Kraft
was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Percussive Arts
Society.
Recordings
Compact discs completely devoted to Mr. Kraft’s music can be found
on Harmonia Mundi, CRI, Cambria, Crystal, Albany, and Nonesuch
labels. Other works can be found on GM, Crystal, London Decca,
Townhall, EMI, and Neuma.
Recent works include Brazen,
commissioned by the San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra; Quintessence Revisited
and Concerto for Four Percussion Soloists and Symphonic Wind
Ensemble, premiered and recorded by the New England
Conservatory
Wind Ensemble, Frank Battisti
conducting.
External links
Wikis
Map
Search
