Alan Heard

Alan Heard - Canadian composer

Person from Canada

About Alan Heard

Heard, Alan. Composer, teacher, b Halifax, NS, 7 Feb 1942; B MUS (McGill) 1962, MFA (Princeton) 1964. He studied composition with István Anhalt at McGill University, Roger Sessions and Earl Kim at Princeton U, and Boris Blacher at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. He taught 1967-71 at McGill University and at Kirkland College in Clinton, NY, before joining the faculty of music at the University of Western Ontario in 1976. In his early compositions Heard used serial techniques and aleatoric procedures, but in 1977 he began writing tonally, eg, in his Sinfonia nello Stile Antico. Of the earlier works, Voices (1969), a setting of Japanese poetry for soprano and five instruments, was a Canadian entry in the 1972 ISCM competition and was performed and recorded by the SMCQ, and Prelude was commissioned by the CBC and premiered by the Orford String Quartet. A notable exception to the tonal orientation of his works after 1977 is the Symphonic Étude for Small Orchestra (1989) which is based on a hexachord manipulated with serial techniques. Heard is an associate of the Canadian Music Centre.

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