Tobias Picker

Tobias Picker (born July 18, 1954) is an American composer who writes in a range of genres: orchestral, opera and chamber works. He has received numerous commissions, especially for operas, and in 2010 composed his first ballet on commission.

Picker was born in New York City. He began composing at the age of eight and his parents arranged for him to study at the Manhattan School of Music, and The Juilliard School. He attended college at Princeton University. His principal teachers were Charles Wuorinen, Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt. Picker received his first commissions while still in his late teens and quickly became established as one of the United States' most sought-after young composers.

By the age of thirty, Picker had earned numerous awards and honors, including the Joseph H. Bearns Prize (Columbia University), a Charles Ives Scholarship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1992, he received the prestigious Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. From 1985–1990 Picker was the first composer-in-residence of the Houston Symphony. He has also served as composer-in-residence for such major international festivals as the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Pacific Music Festival. Tobias Picker was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2012.

Tobias Picker’s music is published exclusively by Schott Music Corporation.

Picker’s symphonic music, including the tone poem Old and Lost Rivers, has been performed by major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, The Munich Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. His piano concerto Keys to the City (written for the Centenary of the Brooklyn Bridge) is recorded on Chandos with his cello concerto and the orchestral work And Suddenly It’s Evening. Following this Chandos release, BBC Music Magazine proclaimed Picker’s recent music “one of the glories of the current musical scene.”

...
Wikipedia