Biography
Louis Karchin has written compositions honored with several of the leading prizes in American classical music. In addition to composing, he maintains an active career as a conductor and has long taught at New York University.
Born in Philadelphia on September 8, 1951, Karchin completed undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, receiving his degree in 1973. He then earned a master’s degree in 1975 and a doctorate in 1978 from Harvard University, supplementing that training with two summers as a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Festival. His conducting mentors included Boris Goldovsky for opera and Leon Barzin in Paris; among his composition teachers were Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, and Leon Kirchner. Karchin founded or co-founded the Harvard Group for New Music, the Chamber Players of the League-ISCM, and the Orchestra of the League of Composers, organizations he has led in world and New York premieres of music by Elliott Carter, Joan Tower, Charles Wuorinen, and other prominent American composers.
He has produced roughly one hundred works, the earliest being the Fantasy for solo violin or viola, written in 1972 during his undergraduate years. Among his principal pieces are the vocal-instrumental cycle American Visions (1998), setting poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko; the chamber opera Romulus (2007), drawn from a play by Alexandre Dumas, père; and the Chamber Symphony (2009). Karchin’s honors encompass grants and prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ensembles that have presented his music range from the Louisville Orchestra and Fort Worth Opera to Spectrum Sonori in Seoul, South Korea. At New York University he serves on the faculty and created its graduate program in composition.
Born in Philadelphia on September 8, 1951, Karchin completed undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, receiving his degree in 1973. He then earned a master’s degree in 1975 and a doctorate in 1978 from Harvard University, supplementing that training with two summers as a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Festival. His conducting mentors included Boris Goldovsky for opera and Leon Barzin in Paris; among his composition teachers were Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, and Leon Kirchner. Karchin founded or co-founded the Harvard Group for New Music, the Chamber Players of the League-ISCM, and the Orchestra of the League of Composers, organizations he has led in world and New York premieres of music by Elliott Carter, Joan Tower, Charles Wuorinen, and other prominent American composers.
He has produced roughly one hundred works, the earliest being the Fantasy for solo violin or viola, written in 1972 during his undergraduate years. Among his principal pieces are the vocal-instrumental cycle American Visions (1998), setting poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko; the chamber opera Romulus (2007), drawn from a play by Alexandre Dumas, père; and the Chamber Symphony (2009). Karchin’s honors encompass grants and prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ensembles that have presented his music range from the Louisville Orchestra and Fort Worth Opera to Spectrum Sonori in Seoul, South Korea. At New York University he serves on the faculty and created its graduate program in composition.
Albums
