RIP: Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss:
August 15, 1922 - February 1, 2009

Composer Lukas Foss passed away on February 1. Obituary here.

Matthew Guerrieri writes about him as teacher:

As a person, he's charming and mischevious, and yes, absent-minded, albeit with a crucial caveat. If I see him, I have to re-introduce myself, but if I send him a piece of music, he remembers everything I've written. Every so often, I'd have a lesson where I hadn't actually written anything new; I'd pull out a sketch from a couple years previous and try to pass it off. He'd look through it for a minute, then turn to me and say, "I've seen this." Another student of his and I used to theorize that he deliberately forgot non-musical things in order to pack more music into his brain.

His choral music includes:

The Prairie (cantata, text by Carl Sandburg), soprano, alto, tenor, bass, mixed chorus, orchestra, 1943 (a suite without voices was arranged); Adon Olom: A Prayer, cantor/tenor, mixed chorus, organ, 1948; Behold! I Build a House (text from the Bible), mixed chorus, organ, 1950; A Parable of Death (text by Rainer Maria Rilke [English translation]), tenor, speaker, mixed chorus, piano, organ, percussion, string orchestra, 1952; Psalms, mixed chorus, small orchestra (2 French horns, trumpet, trombone, harp, 2 pianos, organ, timpani, strings), 1955-56 (also versions for mixed chorus, 2 pianos, 1956; mixed chorus, small orchestra [2 flutes, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 French horns, trumpet, trombone, harp, 2 pianos, timpani, strings], 1956); The Fragments of Archilochos, countertenor, female speaker, male speaker, 4 choral groups, mixed chorus ad libitum, guitar, mandolin, 3 percussion, 1965; Three Airs for Frank O'Hara's Angel (text by Frank O'Hara), soprano, male speaker, female chorus, flute, piano, 2 percussion, 1972; Lamdeni – Teach Me (text from Hebrew sources), mixed chorus, any 6 players, 1973; American Cantata (texts by the composer, Arie Sachs), soprano, tenor, female speaker, male speaker, mixed chorus, orchestra, 1976, revised 1977; Then the Rocks on the Mountain Began to Shout (text by Walt Whitman), 5 mixed voices, 1978; With Music Strong (text by Walt Whitman), mixed chorus, orchestra, 1979; De Profundis, mixed chorus, 1983; Sanctus, mixed chorus, orchestra, 1994