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.