Douglas Knehans

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Douglas Knehans (born 1957, St. Louis, Missouri) is an Australian/American Composer and academic. He is an outgoing professor and head of school at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music and is expected to assume the role of Dean at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in September 2008.

1 General information
2 Academic career
3 Notable students
4 References
5 External links

[edit] General information

Knehans received his initial music education at the Canberra School of Music in Australia’s national capital, where he graduated in 1980 with a high distinction in music composition, the only such awarded that year. Since then, he has been the recipient of numerous commissions, awards and fellowships in Australia and the U.S. Most notably, the inaugural $20,000.00 Victorian Council for the Arts Composition Fellowship (1987-88) which enabled him to write his first chamber opera the ascension of robert flau; a Bicentennial orchestral commission for the Canberra Symphony Orchestra (1988) from the Australian Bicentennial Authority; over a dozen commissions (1986-1988) for various media supported by the Australia Council Performing Arts Board; Fellowships from the MacDowell Colony (1989) and the Leighton Artist Colony (1989), a composer-in-residence grant from Meet the Composer, Inc. (1990) and scholarships and awards from Queens College, C.U.N.Y. (1990) where he gained his M.A. in composition with Distinguished Professor Thea Musgrave. Upon graduation from this institution he was given the first Luigi Dallapiccola Composition Award (1991) for outstanding achievement in music composition.

After graduating from Queens College, Knehans entered the Doctoral program at Yale University where he studied music composition with Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, Lukas Foss and Jonathan Berger. He graduated Yale University in 1993 earning the Woods Chandler Memorial Prize (1993) for best composition in a larger form. He earned his doctorate from Yale University in 1996.

Knehans’ works have been broadcast on Australian National Radio and T.V., PBS TV, NPR, RAI (Italy) Radio and Television and National Radio and Television of Ukraine. His music has been commissioned and performed by some of Australia’s leading ensembles and soloists including the Melbourne, Tasmanian and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, The Elision Ensemble, The Australian Boys Choir, The Adelaide Percussions, Timothy Kain, Ariel New Music, The Australian Opera, The Seymour Group, Virgin Classics recording artist Darryl Poulsen and Carsten Schmidt. He has been featured in three books on Australian music (A Handbook of Australian Music; Directory of Australian Composers and Sound Ideas: Australian Composers Born Since 1950: A Guide to Their Music and Ideas) as well as the International Who’s Who in Music and Musicians Directory (U.K.).

In the US, his music has been commissioned and performed by electronic ’cellist Jeffrey Krieger (1991), New Music New Haven (1993), ’cellist Shauna Rolston (1993), Synchronia (1995), the Mannes School of Music Contemporary Ensemble and ensembles at the University of Alabama as well as The Verdehr Trio. In 1999 Knehans won the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.) Composition Commission Prize. As a result of this commission he wrote a new chamber work premiered at the Kennedy Center by National Symphony musicians during the 2001/2002 season.

His work night chains for solo electronic ’cello is featured on the CRI compact disc of the same name (CRI CD680) under the Emergency Music series. His music is published by Armadillo Edition, New Haven; The Australian Music Centre and American Composers Edition.

In 1993, Knehans was appointed to the University of Alabama School of Music, where he was Chair of the Composition, Theory and Electronic Music area and the Director of the SCREAM (Southern Center for Research into ElectroAcoustic Music) Studio. Since January 2000, Knehans has been Professor and Head of School of the Conservatorium of Music, University of Tasmania (Australia) and Artistic Director of the Australian International Summer Orchestra Institute since 2005.

[edit] Academic career

Douglas Knehans (DMA, Yale University; MMA, Yale University; MMus, C.U.N.Y.; BAMus, ANU), received his initial music education at the Canberra School of Music in Australia's national capital, where he graduated in 1980 with a high distinction in music composition, the only such awarded that year.

After graduating from Queens College, Knehans entered the Doctoral program at Yale University where he studied music composition with Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, Lukas Foss and Jonathan Berger. He graduated Yale University in 1993 earning the Woods Chandler Memorial Prize (1993) for best composition in a larger form. Knehans received his Doctoral degree from Yale University in January, 1996.

In 1993, Knehans was appointed to the University of Alabama School of Music, where he was chair of Composition, Theory and Electronic Music and Director of the SCREAM (Southern Center for Research into ElectroAcoustic Music) Studio.

Between 2000-2006 he has been the Tasmanian State Chair, Federal Board member and Executive Director (Syllabus Development) Music Craft of the Australian Music Examinations Board. He has been Professor of Music and Director of the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music since 2000.

In 2008 he was named Dean of the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati^[1]^[2].