William Duckworth (composer) - Biography

Biography

Duckworth was born in North Carolina in 1943. He obtained a bachelor's degree in music from East Carolina University, then master's and doctorates in music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He studied composition under composer Ben Johnston and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the notation of composer John Cage. (Duckworth's music publishing and record company, Monroe Street Music, is named after the street in New York City where Cage lived and worked.) In 2002 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. Over the years Duckworth enjoyed a close collaboration with James Jordan who frequently performs Duckworth's music with his world-renowned choral ensembles. Duckworth passed away at his home in West New York, N.J., after a long fight with pancreatic cancer.

Read more about this topic:  William Duckworth (composer)

Famous quotes containing the word biography:

    In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.
    James Boswell (1740–95)