Epstein, David M(ayer)

Epstein, David M(ayer), American composer, conductor, and writer on music; b. N.Y., Oct. 3, 1930. He learned to play the piano and clarinet and took part in jazz bands. He studied at Antioch Coll. (A.B., 1952), and then took courses with Carl McKinley and Francis Judd Cooke at the New England Cons, of Music (M.M., 1953), with Irving Fine, Shapero, and Berger at Brandeis Univ. (M.F.A., 1954), and with Babbitt and Sessions at Princeton Univ. (M.F.A., 1956; Ph.D., 1968, with the diss. Schoenberg’s Grundgestalt and Total Serialism: Their Relevance to Homophonic Analysis). In 1955–56 he took lessons in composition with Milhaud in Aspen. In conducting, his mentors were Max Rudolf, Izler Solomon, and Szell. He taught at Antioch Coll. (1957–62), and became an assoc. prof, of music at the Mass. Inst. of Technology in 1965, being named a prof, there in 1971. He has also served as music director of the M.I.T. Sym. Orch. from 1965. In addition, he was music director of the Harrisburg (Pa.) Sym. Orch. (1974–78). In 1983 he was appointed conductor of the New Orch. of Boston. From 1983 to 1988 he was a member of the Herbert von Karajan Musikgesprache in Vienna and at the Salzburg Easter Festival. He publ. Beyond Orpheus: Studies in Musical Structure (Cambridge, Mass., 1979). In his music, he follows a serial method, cleansed of impurities and reduced to a euphonious, albeit contrapuntally dissonant, idiom.

Works

ORCH Movement (1953); Sym. (1958); Sonority-Variations (1968); Ventures, 3 Pieces for Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Rochester, N.Y., Dec. 11, 1970); Cello Concerto (1979). CHAMBER: Piano Trio (1953); String Trio (1964); String Quartet (1971). VOCAL: Excerpts from a Diary, song cycle (1953); The Seasons, song cycle to poems by Emily Dickinson (1956); Night Voices for Narrator, Children’s Chorus, and Orch. (1974); The Concord Psalter for Chorus (1979); The Lament of Job for Chorus (1982). OTHER: Piano Variations (1961); film music.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire