Mel Powell
Mel Powell (1923-1998), born Melvin Epstein in New York City, was an American composer and pianist who moved from swing to modernist concert music. As a young man he was pianist and arranger with Benny Goodman and played in Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band. He then studied composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale, and in 1990 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for Duplicates, a concerto for two pianos and orchestra. Muscular dystrophy ended his touring life. After a B.Mus. at Yale in 1952 he joined its composition faculty and directed its electronic music studio.
A Solo Requiem / Haiku Settings / Filigree Setting / Three Synthesizer Settings (LP)
1981 LP on Nonesuch with some great late 1970's synthesizer music by Powell plus compositions for soprano and piano and for string quartet by both composers spanning from 1958 to 1977. With insert.
Chamber Works
The woodwind quintet is to the wind instruments as the string quartet is to the strings. Composers have treated the heterogenous ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn as a unity for so long now that it has become a musical commonplace.…