about the composer

Lukas Foss (1922-2009) had a diverse musical career as a composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, and champion of new music. His music is at times experimental, featuring aleatoric, serial, and electronic techinques, and at others more traditional, displaying neoclassical tendencies and an interest in Americana and early music. His best-known work Time Cycle (1959-1960) for soprano and orchestra explores concepts of time through notated and improvised music and settings of texts by W. H. Auden, A. E. Housman, Franz Kafka, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Foss emphasized the importance of comic elements in his work: "Humor is absolutely essential to me. Being serious without humor is not being serious enough." (Foss)

Born in Berlin, Germany, Foss was a gifted young musician, studying piano and theory with Julius Goldstein and starting to compose at the age of seven. In 1933 his family fled to Paris, France, where he continued his musical studies; four years later the family moved again to the United States, and Foss enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His principal teachers there included Fritz Reiner, Rosario Scalero, Randall Thompson, and Isabelle Vengerova. From 1939 Foss studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center (now Tanglewood) in Lenox, Massachusetts and composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. From 1944 to 1950 Foss was pianist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and in 1945 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He studied abroad for several years as a Fulbright Scholar and a fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

Foss joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles in 1953, where he later founded the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble and directed the Ojai Festival. From 1963 to 1970 he served as music director for the Buffalo Philharmonic, also founding and directing the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Later conducting posts included the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Kol Israel Orchestra of Jerusalem, and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, as well as many guest conductorships. Foss taught at Harvard, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, and Boston Universities, and the Manhattan School of Music. His music can be found on many major labels as well as Albany, CRI, Crystal, Gasparo, Koch International Classics, Koss, Music & Arts, Newport Classic, and New World.