MEMETERIA

This week brought news of the death of composer Bernard Rands. He passed away in Chicago on 4 March at the age of 92, closing the career of one of the last composers directly linked to the great postwar European modernist circle around Berio, Boulez, and Dallapiccola.

Rands’s longtime publisher, Schott Music, issued the following tribute (excerpted):

“Bernard Rands, the distinguished British composer long resident in the USA, most recently in Chicago, has died there on March 4, 2026, at the age of 92 in the company of his wife Augusta Read Thomas, herself a prominent composer. He leaves behind a catalogue of nearly 100 pieces, widely performed and recorded, all published by Schott, as well as an enormous and varied list of students.

Having studied in Bangor, in the north of Wales, he went to Italy first to study with Roman Vlad and later with Luigi Dallapiccola, perhaps the foremost pedagogue of his time and a formidable post-twelve-tone composer, he soon found himself in the circles of Luciano Berio (also a disciple of Dallapiccola), Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna, then three of the leading lights in European modernism.

His musical style began to move more and more in the direction of what would retroactively be called postmodernism, drawing inspiration from earlier material. As composers found various ways out of the post-serial crisis… Rands remained loyal to the modernist principles of craft and rigor while softening around the edges and incorporating more lyrical tendencies.

Rands’ music later took on introspective, even melancholic tendencies, as evident in the orchestral …body and shadow… and Symphony and the much later concerto for English horn (for Robert Walters).

In the mid-1970s, he accepted a job at the University of California, San Diego… After visiting posts at Boston University, the Juilliard School and Yale University, he became the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music at Harvard University until his retirement.”

Bernard Rands died in the company of his wife, the distinguished composer Augusta Read Thomas, whose vividly colored, poetically charged music has made her one of the most widely performed American composers of her generation.

Norman Ryan, Senior Vice President of Schott Music, notes:

It is with deep sadness that we bid farewell to Bernard Rands, a great artist, humanitarian, and friend. Feted with prestigious awards and honors received during a long life in music, Bernard gifted us with music that traces a line of lineage from Debussy and Sibelius through to Berio, his unique voice characterized by arresting instrumental colors and melodic invention. His love for music and for those that created it knew no bounds. At all times, he was the consummate gentleman – elegant, dignified and erudite. It was a great privilege to be his publisher. Bernard’s spirit and boundless creativity will live on his music. 

James M. Kendrick, President of Schott/EAMDC and Partner at the firm of Alter, Kendrick & Baron, states:

When I first joined European American Music in the Fall of 1977, I already knew that Bernard Rands was one of the leading British contemporary composers of his generation. I also knew that he had recently moved to  the US. But this was only the first part of a long and distinguished career, as Bernard quickly cemented his position as one of the premier composers of the world, and also as one of the most influential composition teachers of his time. It was a joy and privilege to know him and Gusty, and I join the music world in mourning the death of one of its greats.

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