Kevin Matthew Puts is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Life

Puts studied composition and piano at the Eastman School of Music

Eastman School of Music

The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...

 and Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, earning the Doctor of Musical Arts

Doctor of Musical Arts

The Doctor of Musical Arts degree is a doctoral academic degree in music. The D.M.A. combines advanced studies in an applied area of specialization with graduate-level academic study in subjects such as music history, music theory, or music pedagogy. The D.M.A...

 degree from Eastman. Among his teachers were Samuel Adler

Samuel Adler (composer)

Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer and conductor.-Biography:Adler was born to a Jewish family in Mannheim, Germany, the son of Hugo Chaim Adler, a cantor and composer, and Selma Adler. The family fled to the United States in 1939, where Hugo became the cantor of Temple Emanuel in...

, Jacob Druckman

Jacob Druckman

Jacob Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de...

, David Lang

David Lang (composer)

David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion.-Biography:...

, Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner

Joseph Schwantner

Joseph C. Schwantner is a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer and educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize....

, Martin Bresnick

Martin Bresnick

Martin Bresnick is a composer of contemporary classical music, film scores and experimental music.-Education and early career:Bresnick was born and raised in the Bronx, and is a graduate of New York City's specialized High School of Music and Art. He was educated at the University of Hartford ,...

, and, in piano, Nelita True. He also studied at the Tanglewood Music Festival

Tanglewood

Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...

 with William Bolcom

William Bolcom

William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...

 and Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands is a composer of contemporary classical music.Rands studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy.He held residencies...

.

He is composer-in-residence at the Fort Worth Symphony and has received a commission from the Aspen Music Festival

Aspen Music Festival and School

The Aspen Music Festival and School, founded in 1949, is an internationally renowned classical music festival that presents music in an intimate, small-town setting...

. His Cello Concerto was premiered by Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

. Puts's works have been performed by the St. Louis Symphony, the Pacific Symphony

Pacific Symphony

The Pacific Symphony is a symphony orchestra located in Orange County, California. The orchestra performs at the Renée and Henry Segerstom Concert Hall, part of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California...

, the Utah Symphony (with Evelyn Glennie

Evelyn Glennie

Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, DBE is a Scottish virtuoso percussionist. She was the first full-time solo percussionist in 20th-century western society.-Early life:Glennie was born and raised in Aberdeenshire...

 as percussion soloist), the Miró Quartet, and Concertante.

His alma mater reports,

For several years, Kevin Puts received reviews describing him as a "promising composer" and "a young composer to watch." But with a flurry of recent performances and prestigious commissions, Puts can now be described as one of America’s most important composers, period.

Puts was Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Texas at Austin

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

 from 1997 to 2005 and now teaches composition at the Peabody Institute

Peabody Institute

The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is a renowned conservatory and preparatory school located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland at the corner of Charles and Monument Streets at Mount Vernon Place.-History:...

 of Johns Hopkins University.

Awards

• American Academy of Arts and Letters composition prize
• 2001 Guggenheim Fellow
• 1996-1998 Young Concert Artists
  Young Concert Artists
  Young Concert Artists is a New York City-based non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and promoting the careers of talented young classical musicians from all over the world...
  
   Composer-in-Residence
• 2002 Rome Prize
  Rome Prize
  The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists and to 15 scholars The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists...
  
   of the American Academy in Rome
  American Academy in Rome
  The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
  
  .
• 2008 Opera Fund Awards, The Minnesota Opera: Silent Night

Orchestral works

• Symphony No. 1, Commissioned and premiered by the California Symphony Orchestra, 1999
• Symphony No. 2: Island of Innocence, Commissioned by the Barlow Foundation; Premieres: Cincinnati Symphony/Paavo Jaarvi, conductor and Utah Symphony/Keith Lockhart, conductor, 2002
• Symphony No. 3 (“Vespertine”), Commissioned by Kathryn Gould and Meet the Composer through Magnum Opus. Premiered by the Marin Symphony, Alasdair Neale, conductor, 2004
• Symphony No. 4, Commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music Premiered by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor, 2007
• ...this noble company, Commissioned and premiered by the Atlanta Symphony, 2003
• Vespertine Elegy

External links

• Kevin Puts official site