Stephen Paul Hartke (born July 6, 1952) is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

. Hartke is best known as the composer of ''Meanwhile – Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays,'' winner of the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2013. Following a twenty six-year tenure at the Thornton School of Music of the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

, Hartke became the head of

Oberlin Conservatory The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music conservatory of Oberlin College, a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the second oldest conservatory and oldest continually operating conservatory in ...

's composition department on July 1, 2015.

Life

Hartke was born in

Orange, New Jersey The City of Orange (known simply as Orange) is a Township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 34,447, an increase o ...

. He studied at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

,Keller, James M
"Thomas / Druckman / Harte"
Liner note essay.

New World Records New World Records is a record label that was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to celebrate America's bicentennial (1976) by producing a 100-LP anthology, with American music from many genres.University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

. From 1984 to 1985, he was Fulbright Professor at the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. He joined the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at the

in 1987. He was composer in residence at the

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) is an American chamber orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. LACO presents its Orchestral Series concerts at two venues, the Alex Theatre in Glendale and UCLA's Royce Hall. History James Arkatov, ...

from 1988 to 1992. In 2015, he took Emeritus status at USC when he moved to Oberlin Conservatory to chair its composition department. Hartke has received commissions from numerous groups, including the

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (founded in 1972) is a classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. They have won several Grammy Awards, and are known for their collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, not a conductor, i ...

for the new Brandenburg Project, Glimmerglass Opera (for '' The Greater Good, or the Passion of Boule de Suif''), the

New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the ''Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc.'', and globally known as the ''New York Philharmonic Orchestra'' (NYPO) or the ''New Yo ...

, the

National Symphony Orchestra The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1930 by cellist Hans Kindler, its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The NSO regularly ...

, and the Hilliard Ensemble. He received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 1997, a Charles Ives Prize from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

in 2004, and the Charles Ives Opera Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2008. His composition ''Meanwhile – Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays'' won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2013. Hartke's musical influences include

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...

medieval music Medieval music encompasses the sacred music, sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the Dates of classical music eras, first and longest major era of Western class ...

, Tudor church music,

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that was historically used for imperial court music and dances. was developed as court music of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, and its near-current form was established in the Heian period (794–1185) arou ...

gamelan Gamelan (; ; , ; ) is the traditional musical ensemble, ensemble music of the Javanese people, Javanese, Sundanese people, Sundanese, and Balinese people, Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussion instrument, per ...

, other non-Western musics, and his teachers Leonardo Balada and

George Rochberg George Rochberg (July 5, 1918May 29, 2005) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Long a serialism, serial composer, Rochberg abandoned the technique after his teenage son died in 1964, saying it had proved inadequate to expres ...

. Stephen Hartke lives in

Oberlin, Ohio Oberlin () is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. It is located about southwest of Cleveland within the Cleveland metropolitan area. The population was 8,555 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Oberlin is the home of Oberlin ...

, with his wife Lisa Stidham and their son Sandy.Alison Engel, "Distinguished Professor Stephen Hartke to become emeritus," USC News, March 10, 2015, URL=Distinguished Professor Stephen Hartke to become emeritus

Notes

References

* * Allan Kozinn
"Ear-Catching, Modern Madrigals for String Quartet,"
The New York Times, November 4, 2010 *

External links

* * four works by the composer
'Ep. 86: Stephen Hartke, composer'
Interview by Tigran Arakelyan 1952 births Living people Musicians from Orange, New Jersey American male classical composers 20th-century American classical composers 21st-century American classical composers Yale University alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni University of California, Santa Barbara alumni USC Thornton School of Music faculty Academic staff of the University of São Paulo Classical musicians from New Jersey 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Oberlin Conservatory of Music faculty {{US-composer-20thC-stub