Barbara Pentland

Barbara Pentland (2 January 1912 – 5 February 2000) was one of the pre-eminent members of the generation of Canadian composers who came to artistic maturity in the years following World War Two.

Born in Winnipeg, Pentland suffered from a heart disorder which significantly limited both her physical and social activities during her childhood. As a result, she devoted much of her time from an early age to academic pursuits and other intellectual activities. At the age of 9 she began studying the piano in her native city at the Rupert's Land Girls' School. She soon developed an interest in music composition but her early ventures into this area were strongly discouraged by both her teacher and her relatively wealthy and conservative family, who viewed the pursuit as an eccentric hobby that was "too exciting for a delicate child".

Despite her family's objections, Pentland continued to compose privately as a young teenager. She finally was encouraged in this pursuit by one of her teachers, the organist and conductor Frederick H. Blair, who taught her piano and music theory while she attended boarding school in Montreal from 1927-1929. She then studied composition with family approval in Paris in 1929 with Cécile Gauthiez while attending a finishing school in that city; after which, she returned to her native city where she studied under Hugh Bancroft (organ) and Eva Clare (piano) from 1930–1936 and embarked on a career as a concert pianist.

In 1936, Pentland entered the graduate music program at the Juilliard School in New York City where she studied 16th-century counterpoint with Frederick Jacobi and modern composition techniques with Bernard Wagenaar through 1939. During these years, her own compositions took on a language that was primarily neoclassical, showing the influence of Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, and later Aaron Copland; the latter of whom she studied with at the Tanglewood Music Center during the summers of 1941 and 1942.

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