Jan Swafford
Jan Swafford is an American composer and author. He earned his bachelor of arts magna cum laude from Harvard College and his DMA in composition from the Yale School of Music. His music has been widely played by ensembles, including the symphonies of St. Louis, Indianapolis, and the Dutch Radio. He is the author of biographies of Ives, Brahms, and Beethoven. His many honors include an NEA Composer Grant and the Deems Taylor Award for online writing on music, which he won for his essays in Slate...See more
Jan Swafford is an American composer and author. He earned his bachelor of arts magna cum laude from Harvard College and his DMA in composition from the Yale School of Music. His music has been widely played by ensembles, including the symphonies of St. Louis, Indianapolis, and the Dutch Radio. He is the author of biographies of Ives, Brahms, and Beethoven. His many honors include an NEA Composer Grant and the Deems Taylor Award for online writing on music, which he won for his essays in Slate . He is a longtime program writer and preconcert lecturer for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and has written notes and essays for the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, and Toronto. Among his liner notes for recordings are those for DGG's anniversary release of Beethoven's nine symphonies by the Vienna Philharmonic. See less
Jan Swafford's Featured Books
Jan Swafford book reviews
-
Johannes Brahms: A Biography
Swafford's Biography Of Brahms
I read Jan Swafford's monumental 1997 biography of Johannes Brahms (1833 --1897) after reading his biography of the American composer Charles Ives and after reading the 1991 biography of Brahms by ... Read More
-
Charles Ives: A Life with Music
A Great American Composer Brought To Life
Charles Ives (1874-1954)was the first, and still probably the greatest, composer of a distinctly American art ("classical") music. His relationship to American music seems to me roughly parallel to ... Read More
-
Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
Portrait of a genius
by DLRS, Oct 3, 2014
This is a superb biography of Ludwig van Beethoven. The one unanswered question, which has eluded everyone to date, but may yet be answered one day, is the name of the lady known as 'The Immortal ... Read More
