Barney Childs
{{Short description|American composer}}
{{Notability|date=December 2024}}
Barney Sanford Childs (February 13, 1926 – January 11, 2000) was an American composer and teacher. Born in Spokane, Washington, he taught and composed avant-garde music and literature at universities in the United States and United Kingdom.
Music
He was a musical autodidact till his association in the 1950s with Leonard Ratner and Elliott Carter in New York and with Aaron Copland and Carlos Chavez at Tanglewood {{harv|Swift and Attinello|2001}}. He was associated later with double bass player Bertram Turetzky and clarinet player Phillip Rehfeldt. He wrote several pieces for these and other players, often using extended techniques.{{Citation needed|date=February 2013}} Much of his music employs improvisation and indeterminacy (see his "Roachville Project," 1967). However, his influences are diverse and include jazz artists, John Cage, Charles Ives, and Paul Hindemith. Childs won the Koussevitzky Award at Tanglewood in 1954.{{Citation needed|date=February 2013}}
Education and teaching career
Trained originally as a literary scholar, Childs studied at Deep Springs College (1943–45), the University of Nevada, Reno (earning a BA in 1949), and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, earning a second BA in 1951 and an MA in 1955. He then returned to the United States where he earned a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University (1961) and remained active as an editor and writer of poetry. He taught English literature at the University of Arizona from 1956 to 1965 {{harv|Swift and Attinello|2001}}, where he was mentor to the young Joseph Byrd,{{Citation needed|date=February 2013}} then served as Dean at Deep Springs College from 1965 to 1969. In 1970 he was composer in residence at Wisconsin College Conservatory {{harv|Swift and Attinello|2001}}, and also taught at Goldsmiths, University of London.{{Citation needed|date=February 2013}} From 1971 until his death, he was a Fellow of Johnston College, University of Redlands in Redlands, California, where he taught composition and music literature {{harv|Swift and Attinello|2001}}. He also taught literature and creative writing at the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, located on the University of Redlands campus.{{Citation needed|date=February 2013}}
Childs wrote a poetry instruction manual, The Poetry 1 Book, which was published posthumously in 2014.
Childs died in Redlands in 2000, of Parkinson's disease.
References
- {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Swift and Attinello|2001}}|reference=Swift, Richard, and Paul Attinello. 2001. "Childs, Barney (Sanford)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.}}
Further reading
- Childs, Barney. 2002. A Music; That It Might Be.... New World Records.{{Full citation needed|date=February 2016}}
- Childs, Barney. 2014. The Poetry 1 Book. Createspace.{{Full citation needed|date=February 2016}}
External links
- Anon. 2012. "[http://library.redlands.edu/content.php?pid=329420&sid=2700861#9386381 Biographical Sketch]".{{Dead link|date=May 2015}} Armacost Library, Barney Childs Collection. University of Redlands (Accessed March 18, 2013).
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Category:20th-century American classical composers
Category:American male classical composers
Category:Deaths from Parkinson's disease in California
Category:American experimental composers
Category:Deep Springs College alumni
Category:Musicians from Spokane, Washington
Category:American Rhodes Scholars
Category:University of Nevada, Las Vegas alumni
Category:Stanford University alumni
Category:University of Arizona faculty
Category:Deep Springs College faculty
Category:Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London