Jack Behrens (25 March 1935 – 9 December 2024) was a Canadian composer, music educator, and writer of American birth. A member of the

Canadian League of Composers The Canadian League of Composers (CLC) is an organization formed in 1951 of Canadian composers primarily interested in raising awareness and acceptance of Canadian music. Its activities are overseen and directed by an executive, and by a National C ...

and an associate of the

Canadian Music Centre The Canadian Music Centre was founded in 1959 by a group of Canadian composers who saw a need to create a repository for Canadian music. It now holds Canada's largest collection of Canadian concert music, and works to promote the music of its As ...

, his music has been performed throughout North America and on

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

and radio stations in the United States. In 1970 his orchestral work ''The Sound of Milo'' won first prize in the New Orleans Symphony contest and his choral work ''How Beautiful is the Night'' was awarded the

Francis Boott Francis Boott (26 September 1792 – 25 December 1863) was an American physician and botanist who was resident in Great Britain from 1820. Biography Boott was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, the brother of Kirk Boott, ...

Prize at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. He was married to the late Canadian pianist

Sonja Peterson Behrens Sonia, Sonja or Sonya, a name of Greek origin meaning wisdom, may refer to: People * Sonia (name), a feminine given name (lists people named, Sonia, Sonja and Sonya) :* Sonia (actress), Indian film actress in Malayalam and Tamil films :* Sonia ...

Life and career

Born in

Lancaster, Pennsylvania Lancaster ( ) is a city in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 58,039 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, eighth-most populous ci ...

, Behrens was trained at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...

where he earned a

Bachelor of Music A Bachelor of Music (BMus; sometimes conferred as Bachelor of Musical Arts) is an academic degree awarded by a college, university, or conservatory upon completion of a program of study in music. The degree may be awarded for performance, music ed ...

in 1958 and a

Master of Music The Master of Music (MM or MMus) is, as an academic title, the first graduate degree in music awarded by universities and conservatories. The MM combines advanced studies in an applied area of specialization (usually performance in singing or i ...

in 1959. Among his teachers at Juilliard were

William Bergsma William Laurence Bergsma (April 1, 1921 – March 18, 1994) was an American composer and teacher. He was long associated with Juilliard School, where he taught composition, until he moved to the University of Washington as head of their music ...

Vincent Persichetti Vincent Ludwig Persichetti (June 6, 1915 – August 14, 1987) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, he was known for his integration of various new ideas in musical composition into his own work ...

, and

Peter Mennin Peter Mennin (born Mennini; May 17, 1923 – June 17, 1983) was a prominent American composer, teacher and administrator. In 1958, he was named Director of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and in 1962 became President of the Juilliard Sch ...

. In the summer of 1962 he studied at the

Aspen Music Festival and School The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is a European classical music, classical music festival held annually in Aspen, Colorado. It is noted both for its concert programming and the musical training it offers to mostly young-adult music stu ...

with

Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (, ; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His composition ...

and in the summers of 1964–1965 he studied with

Stefan Wolpe Stefan Wolpe (25 August 1902, Berlin – 4 April 1972, New York City) was a German-born American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz mov ...

and

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

at the Emma Lake Composers-Artists Workshop in Saskatchewan. He later entered the graduate composition program at

where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy in music composition in 1973. His teachers at Harvard were

Leon Kirchner Leon Kirchner (January 24, 1919 – September 17, 2009) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he won a Pulitzer Pr ...

and

Roger Sessions Roger Huntington Sessions (December 28, 1896March 16, 1985) was an American composer, teacher, and writer on music. He had started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved towards complex harmonies and postromanticism, a ...

. In 1962 Behrens joined the music faculty at the

University of Saskatchewan The University of Saskatchewan (U of S, or USask) is a Universities in Canada, Canadian public university, public research university, founded on March 19, 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatch ...

where he was head of the theory department through 1966. He worked on the music faculty at

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a Public university, public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It maintains three campuses in Greater Vancouver, respectively located in Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, British Columbia, Surrey, and ...

from 1966 to 1970 and then taught at

California State University, Bakersfield California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB, Cal State Bakersfield, or CSU Bakersfield) is a public university in Bakersfield, California. It was established in 1965 as Kern State College and officially in 1968 as California State College Ba ...

from 1970 to 1976. From 1976 to 1980 he was chairman of the music theory and composition department at the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO; branded as Western University) is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thame ...

(UWO), and then served as the dean of UWO's music faculty from 1980 to 1986. Following his retirement from Western, Behrens was active at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) as Director of Academic Studies at

The Glenn Gould School The Glenn Gould School is an elite institution for the training of professional musicians in performance at post-secondary and post-bachelor levels in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1987 and renamed in 1997 after the pianist ...

. Behrens received commissions from

Adele Marcus Adele Marcus (February 22, 1906 May 3, 1995) was an American pianist and instructor whose career was based at the Juilliard School in New York City. Life and career Marcus was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the youngest of 13 children of a rabbi ...

, the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...

, the

Ontario Arts Council The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is a publicly funded Canadian organization in the province of Ontario whose purpose is to foster the creation and production of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Based in Toronto, OAC was founded in 1963 by O ...

, and Orchestra London among others. In 1965 the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to ...

commissioned his

chamber opera Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a Chamber music, chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's ''Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas ...

''The Lay of Thrym'' (libretto by C.K. Cockburn) as part of their research program on Viking literature, art, and music in Scandinavian countries. The four-scene opera is based on an Icelandic legend and employs

atonality Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

and aleatoric and improvisational techniques. The world premiere of the opera was given at

Darke Hall Darke Hall is a 470 seat performance hall located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The hall was named for Francis Nicholson Darke, the former mayor of Regina. Designed by architect J.H. Puntin, the hall was built in 1928 and had its inaugural con ...

on 13 April 1968 under the baton of the composer. Behrens is the subject of international research by flautist Rebecca Hall, of the University of Malta, and Karin Di Bella of Brock University in Ontario. In January 2019, Di Bella was quoted as saying "What’s interesting about Jack’s pieces is that even though they’re more modern in style, they’re still really accessible." Behrens died on 9 December 2024, at the age of 89.

References

External links

*
Article at thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
{{DEFAULTSORT:Behrens, Jack 1935 births 2024 deaths American male classical composers American opera composers American music educators American emigrants to Canada Musicians from Lancaster, Pennsylvania Canadian classical composers Canadian music educators Canadian male opera composers Aspen Music Festival and School alumni California State University, Bakersfield faculty Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Juilliard School alumni Academic staff of Simon Fraser University Academic staff of the University of Saskatchewan Academic staff of the University of Western Ontario Pupils of Darius Milhaud Pupils of Roger Sessions