Music
Roger Reynolds
born 1934 · composer
Detroit-born composer, trained first as an engineer, who pioneered computer and spatial music and won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Whispers Out of Time.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 92- Birth name
- Roger Lee Reynolds
- Detroit years
- 1934–1952
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Reynolds was born in Detroit in 1934, the son of an architect. Records bought on his father's advice, including Horowitz playing Chopin, drew him to the piano, and he studied with the Detroit teacher Kenneth Aiken, who made pupils learn the cultural context of every piece. When he graduated from high school in 1952 he gave a solo recital in Detroit of Brahms, Liszt, Debussy and Chopin. Unsure of a pianist's life, he studied engineering physics at the University of Michigan, then returned to Ann Arbor for music, studying with Ross Lee Finney and Roberto Gerhard and co-founding the avant-garde ONCE Group and festivals with Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma. After years in Europe and Japan he joined the University of California, San Diego in 1969 and built it into a center for computer music. His string orchestra piece Whispers Out of Time won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989.
Highlights
- Pulitzer Prize for Music, 1989 (Whispers Out of Time)
- Gave a solo piano recital in Detroit on finishing high school in 1952
- Co-founded Ann Arbor's ONCE Group and festivals (1961–1963)
- Built UC San Diego into a center for computer music