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Classiscsonline Home » Composers » W » Wuorinen, Charles

Charles Wuorinen (b6/09/1938)

Born in New York City, the American composer, pianist and conductor Charles Wuorinen has been greatly influenced by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Stefan Wolpe, Babbitt and Elliott Carter. He has taught at a number of leading schools in the United States and been the recipient of many awards and honours, holding a central and important position in American musical life.

Vocal and Instrumental Music

A prolific composer in a variety of genres, Wuorinen has drawn inspiration from a number of sources, from fractal geometry and Gregorian chants to Indian rāgas, using extensions of serial technique and electronic devices. His operas include a version of Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, his songs settings of poems by Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, James Fenton and John Ashbery, and his orchestral works some eight symphonies and a number of concertos.

His chamber music involves a varied collection of instruments and includes a Quartet for percussion. Wuorinen’s Dante Trilogy is a series of three ballets written between 1993 and 1996 based on the three books of Dante’s Divina Commedia.

Charles Wuorinen Catalog of Music