Irwin Swack

{{short description|American composer}}

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Irwin Swack (November 8, 1916 – January 2, 2006) was an American composer of contemporary classical music from West Salem, Ohio.

He held degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music{{Cite web |title=Alumni Success |url=https://www.cim.edu/aboutcim/alumnisuccess |access-date=April 19, 2025 |website=Cleveland Institute of Music}} (where he studied violin, graduating with a B.M. in 1939),{{Citation |title=Ninetieth Annual Commencement |date=June 16, 1948 |url=https://ia902203.us.archive.org/10/items/annualcommenceme1948nort/annualcommenceme1948nort.pdf |place=Evanston |publisher=Northwestern University |via=Internet Archive}} the Juilliard School, Northwestern University (master's degree), and Columbia University (doctorate).{{Cite conference |date=February 20–21, 1987 |title=Irwin Swack |url=https://libraries.uta.edu/sci/sites/sci/files/rc_ii_1987x_montclair.pdf |conference=American Society of University Composers Region II Conference |publisher=Montclair State College}} He studied with Henry Cowell (at Columbia University), Gunther Schuller (at Tanglewood), Vittorio Giannini (at Juilliard), Paul Creston (at Columbia University), and Normand Lockwood. Swack also worked as an assistant professor of music at Jacksonville State College.{{Cite web |last= |date= |title=Irwin Swack, Assistant Professor 1 |url=https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/lib-ac-histimg/4365/ |website=Jacksonville State University}} His music was recorded on the Centaur, CRS, Opus One, and Living Artist Recordings labels.

His music is published by Carl Fischer, Shawnee Press, Theodore Presser, and Galaxy Music.

His last residence was in Bellmore, New York.