Kirke Mechem

Kirke Mechem (born August 16, 1925) is an American composer. His first opera, Tartuffe, with over 400 performances in six countries, has become one of the most popular operas written by an American. He has composed more than 250 works in almost every form. In 2002, ASCAP registered performances of his music in 42 countries. He is often called the "dean of American choral composers" (G. Schirmer bio). His memoir, Believe Your Ears: Life of a Lyric Composer, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2015; it won ASCAP Foundation's 48th annual Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for outstanding musical biography.

Mechem was born August 16, 1925 in Wichita, Kansas. His family moved to Topeka when he was five. His father was a writer of published novels, plays and poetry and was director of the Kansas State Historical Society. His mother was a German-trained concert pianist. Mechem began studying piano with his mother at an early age but was more interested in sports. He later worked for a time as a sports reporter for the Topeka Daily Capital. He played popular music by ear and at age seventeen began writing what he describes as "stacks of wretched songs." During World War II, he served two and half years in the army, then enrolled at Stanford University as an English major, intending to follow in his father's footsteps as a writer. Out of curiosity he took a harmony course taught by Harold Schmidt, the choral director, who later became the principal influence on his development as a choral composer and conductor. He continued his study of harmony and counterpoint, changing his major to music at the end of his junior year. His principal teachers at Stanford were Leonard Ratner (harmony, counterpoint) and Sandor Salgo (orchestration and conducting). In his senior year, Mechem orchestrated and conducted the student variety show. He earned a master's degree at Harvard in 1953, studying composition with Walter Piston and Randall Thompson, and was winner of the Boott Prize for vocal composition. He was assistant choral director for three years at Stanford, composing both choral and instrumental music and conducting an opera. He lived in Vienna, Austria in 1956-57 and 1961-63. During his first year there he turned down a teaching and conducting post at Harvard in order to devote as much time as possible to composition. In 1963 Mechem returned to the Bay Area with his wife and children and settled into the house in San Francisco where he still lives. He became composer-in-residence at the University of San Francisco and has also taught at many other universities as a guest composer and conductor. In the early 1970s, Mechem and his family moved to London for a year. On May 13, 2012, Mechem received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Kansas for "notable contributions to choral music and opera".

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