Robert Beaser

Robert Beaser (b Boston, 29 May 1954). American composer. A percussionist with the Greater Boston Youth SO, he conducted the orchestra in the première performance of his first orchestral work, Antigone (1972).

He studied composition with Arnold Franchetti before entering Yale University, where his teachers included Jacob Druckman, Toru Takemitsu, Earle Brown and Yehudi Wyner (BA 1976, MMA 1981, DMA 1985). He also studied composition with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome and Betsy Jolas at Tanglewood. His conducting teachers included Otto-Werner Mueller, Arthur Weisburg and William Steinberg. He served as co-director of the New York ensemble, Contemporary Elements (1978–89), and composer-in-residence of the American Composers Orchestra (1988–93) before joining the composition department at the Juilliard School (1993). Among his awards are the Prix de Rome (1977), Guggenheim and Fulbright foundation fellowships, a 1988 Grammy nomination (Mountain Songs, 1985) and an award from the American Academy in Rome (1995). His works have been commissioned by the St Paul Chamber Orchestra (Song of the Bells, 1987), St Louis SO (Piano Concerto, 1989), Chicago SO (Double Chorus, 1990), Baltimore SO (The Heavenly Feast, 1994) and the New York PO.

Beaser's music from the late 1970s onwards embraces the tenets of Romanticism in its epic scale, use of programmatic elements and tonal foundation. His melodic gift and finely developed sense of irony, however, elevate his compositions above mere exercises in nostalgia. Thematic variation and transformation is central to the structure of many of his works, particularly the set of variations that forms the second movement of the Piano Concerto. While the concerto quotes material from Beethoven to Bernstein, a subtle reflection of musical influence is more characteristic of Beaser's style.