Peter Schickele

Peter Schickele ( born July 17, 1935 in Ames, Iowa) is an American composer.

His imaginary biography of PDQ Bach, a recent fictional son of the great Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, he has, " supplemented " with a large number of self-composed parody songs, which he published under this pseudonym. With great regularity "discovered" Professor Schickele new old works of PDQ Bach, these issues and leads them on the first time, especially in his legendary Christmas concerts at Carnegie Hall. There are now 17 CDs with these compositions published ( selection of works under PDQ Bach).

Schickele is, however, emerged through own, not published under the name PDQ Bach compositions, for example, with the soundtrack to the American science fiction film Silent Running from 1972.

Life

Peter Schickele grew up in Washington DC and in Fargo, North Dakota, his parents had immigrated from Alsace in the United States. In Fargo, he graduated in 1952 from high school, he studied composition at Sigvald Thompson teaching. His musical studies at Swarthmore College, where he from 1957, at the Juilliard School of Music, he obtained a degree in MS for composition. His teachers at Juilliard included alongside Roy Harris, whom he often than those referred to in the following years, who had influenced him most, Darius Milhaud, Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma. From 1961 to 1965 he himself taught at the Juilliard School, after which he is see previously self-employed.

Schickele is married to Susan Sindall, which lives in New York City couple has two children, Matt and Karla, the various indie rock bands belonged, including Beekeeper, Ida, K. and M Shanghai String Band. His brother was the film director and musician David Schickele († 1999).

Work

Schickele created more than 100 songs and musical works for symphony orchestras, choirs, chamber music ensemble, film ( including Silent Running ( German: Silent Running ) and animated films based on the books Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen), and television. In addition, he created works for the school orchestra and for some folk musicians, the most famous is probably Joan Baez. For them, he arranged and orchestrated in the 1960s, the three albums Noël, Joan, and Baptism. He wrote several musicals, for which he also received several awards, and was as a musician and as a conductor numerous concerts in North America and in other countries.

In his oeuvre can be both influences of European classical music and American music seen. So also consequences of the radio program series Schickele Mix emerged under his considerable influence, which were broadcast as part of the educational program of many public radio stations in the United States. The production of the radio series had to be stopped for financial reasons in the late 1990s, the broadcasting of program repetitions carried out until June 2007. Only 119 of the 169 program sequences were repeated, as some past episodes as part of the national public radio program American Public Radio have arisen that future programs created as part of the national public radio program from public Radio International. From March 2006, some of the previously repeated sequences could be resumed in the repetition of the series. However, the known result Periodic Table of Music's was not among them, in the Schickele musicians and composers comparable lists the elements in the periodic table of elements.

Schickele was a bassoon player the rock trio Open Window in which the music for the revue Oh! Calcutta! wrote and performed.

His music is published by the Theodore Presser Company.