Paul Chihara

Paul Chihara (born 1938 in Seattle) is an American composer of concert music, ballet scores and music for film and television. He earned a doctorate at Cornell in 1965, where he studied with Robert Palmer, and also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Ernst Pepping in Berlin and Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood. He was the first composer in residence of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (1971-74) and later held the same post with the San Francisco Ballet. Chihara's ballets include Shinju (1975) and The Tempest (1980), and his orchestral works include a Second Symphony, Birds of Sorrow.