Samuel Adler taught at the Eastman School of Music from 1966 to 1995, and served as chair of the composition department from 1974 until his retirement. In 1989, he received the Eastman School’s Eisenhart Award for distinguished teaching. Adler was educated at Boston University and Harvard University, and holds honorary doctorates from Southern Methodist University, Wake Forest University, St. Mary’s Notre-Dame, and the St. Louis Conservatory. His major teachers in composition were Herbert Fromm, Walter Piston, Randall Thompson, Paul Hindemith, and Aaron Copland. Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2001, Samuel Adler is the composer of more than 400 published works, which have been performed all over the world. He is also the author of four books: Choral Conducting; Sight Singing; The Study of Orchestration; and a memoir, Building Bridges with Music. Samuel Adler’s many prizes include a 1900 award form the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Charles Ives Award, the University of Rochester’s Lillian Fairchild Award, MTNA Award for Composer of the Year (1988-89), Special Citation by the American Federation of Music Clubs (2001), and the Deems Taylor Award for The Study of Orchestration. In 1999, Adler was elected to the Germany’s Akademie der Künste for distinguished service to music, and in 2003 was awarded the Aaron Copland Award by ASCAP for lifetime achievement in composition and teaching.
