Aaron Jay Kernis (born January 15, 1960) is an American composer and professor at the Yale School of Music.
Biography
Aaron Jay Kernis is Jewish, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Yale University (under John Adams, Jacob Druckman, Morton Subotnick, and Charles Wuorinen).
Notable works include the New Era Dance, his second string quartet Musica Instrumentalis (which won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Music), Colored Field for English horn and orchestra (winner of the 2002 Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition, and later arranged for cello), Superstar Etude for piano, and Symphony in Waves.
He began his musical career studying the violin and then piano before deciding at age 13 to take up composition; this influence can be seen in his frequent and skillful use of strings in orchestral works and as solo instruments. At age 16 he won the first of three BMI Foundation Student Composer Awards, one of the most prestigious prizes for young composers. His use of instrumental color in general is notable, as is his integration of a variety of musical, literary, and social influences into his work. Kernis is an active composer in high demand by such groups as the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony; he currently also serves as Composer Institute Director for the Minnesota Orchestra and on the Artistic Advisory Panel of the BMI Foundation.
von Tilzer was a prominent Jewish American popular song composer at the turn of the 20th Century. Wrote I Want a Girl, Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad, and Wait Till The Sun Shines, Nellie, among many others.
Brooks is a Jewish American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows. In middle age he became one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, with many of his films being among the top ten money makers of the year that they were released. His most well known films include The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part I and Spaceballs.
Copland was born in Brooklyn of Lithuanian Jewish descent, the last of five children, on November 14, 1900. He was a 20th Century composer who brought American-based themes into his work (i.e. Appalachin Spring). The family name was Kaplan. It was changed, so far as Copland knew, by the Ellis Island agent.
19152003
