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Michael Charles Colgrass (April 22, 1932 – July 2, 2019) was an American and Canadian musician, composer, and educator.^[2] He was an associate composer of theCanadian Music Centre.

Colgrass was born inBrookfield, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.^[3] His musical career began in Chicago as a jazz musician (1944–1949). He graduated from theUniversity of Illinois (1954) with a degree in percussion performance and composition, including studies withDarius Milhaud at theAspen Festival andLukas Foss atTanglewood. He served two years as timpanist in the U.S. Seventh Army Symphony inStuttgart.

Colgrass spent eleven years supporting his composition activities as a free-lance percussionist in the city of New York, where his performance experiences included such varied groups as theNew York Philharmonic Orchestra, TheMetropolitan Opera,Dizzy Gillespie, the Modern Jazz Recording Orchestra'sStravinsky Conducts Stravinsky series, and numerous ballet, opera, and jazz ensembles. He organized the percussion sections forGunther Schuller's recordings and concerts, as well as for recordings and premieres of new works byJohn Cage,Elliott Carter,Edgard Varèse, andHarry Partch; and he performed with Partch's ensemble. During his New York period, he continued to study composition with Wallingford Riegger (1958) and Ben Weber (1958–1960).

Colgrass received commissions from theNew York Philharmonic and TheBoston Symphony (twice), as well as the orchestras ofMinnesota,Detroit, San Francisco,St. Louis,Pittsburgh,Washington,Toronto (twice), the National Arts Centre Orchestra (twice), TheCanadian Broadcasting Corporation, theLincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Manhattan and Muir String Quartets, the Brighton Festival in England, the Fromm and Ford Foundations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and numerous other orchestras, chamber groups, choral groups, and soloists.

The Colgrass family decided to relocate to Toronto in 1970 primarily because of street crime, labor strikes, and civil chaos then rampant in the city of New York, an urban quality-of-life crisis that reached its peak under MayorJohn Vliet Lindsay. "Crime was at its apex at the time in New York and Ulla and I were wondering where to live," Colgrass later told a Toronto journalist. "We … happened to see a60 Minutes special on Toronto, with its low crime rate, multiculturalism, and plenty of parks. We liked what we saw." The move would break Colgrass's life roughly into two parts: an American half followed by a Canadian half.^[4]

Colgrass won the 1978Pulitzer Prize for Music for his symphonic pieceDéjà vu, which was commissioned and premiered by theNew York Philharmonic. In addition, he received anEmmy Award in 1982 for aPBS documentarySoundings: The Music of Michael Colgrass. Other awards include twoGuggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, First Prize in the Barlow and Sudler International Wind Ensemble Competitions, and the 1988Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music.

Among his later works isCrossworlds (2002) for flute, piano, and orchestra; this was commissioned by theBoston Symphony Orchestra and premiered with soloistsMarina Piccinini andAndreas Heafliger. In 2003 he conducted the premiere of his new chamber orchestra version of theBach-Goldberg Variations with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Another twenty-first century premiere wasSide by Side (2007) for harpsichord, altered piano (one player), and orchestra, commissioned collectively by theEsprit Orchestra, The Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and The Richmond Symphony featuring soloist Joanne Kong. The Canadian premiere took place on 13 May 2007 in Toronto under conductor Alex Pauk; the American premiere followed on 2 November 2007 in Boston under Gil Rose. Soon after followedPan Trio, for steel drums, harp, and percussion (marimba/vibraphone), commissioned and premiered in Toronto on 21 May 2008 bySoundstreams Canada and featuring pans virtuosoLiam Teague. His work was also featured on theMark Hetzler 2015 recordingBlues, Ballads and Beyond.

Colgrass also devised a system of teaching music creativity to children; he taught this to middle- and high-school music teachers, who have in turn used his techniques to teach children to write and perform new music of their own creation. His articles on these activities appeared in theMusic Educators Journal (September 2004) andAdultita, an Italian education magazine. He also wrote a number of works for children to perform.

Colgrass lived inToronto, Ontario,Canada for nearly five decades, while earning his living internationally as a composer.

Colgrass died on July 2, 2019, at the age of 87.^[5] His widow, Ulla, is a journalist and editor who writes about music and the arts; and his son Neal is an editor, journalist, and screenwriter.^{[citation needed]}

• John Bergamo

As a prose author, Colgrass wroteMy Lessons with Kumi, a fictionalized "teaching tale" outlining his techniques for performance and creativity; he also gave workshops throughout the world on the psychology and technique of performance. Colgrass also wrote, in collaboration with his wife and son,Adventures of an American Composer: An Autobiography, published in 2010.

• Colgrass, Michael (2000).My Lessons With Kumi: How I Learned to Perform with Confidence in Life and Work. Boulder, Colorado: Real People Press/Andreas NLP.ISBN 978-0-911226-40-9.
• Colgrass, Michael (2010). Colgrass, Neal and Ulla (ed.).Adventures of an American Composer: An Autobiography. Galesville, Maryland: Meredith Music.ISBN 978-1-57463-155-5.

The following is a list of works by Colgrass.^[6][7]

• Official website
• Michael Colgrass' page at Carl Fischer
• Works of Michael Colgrass at Carl Fischer, music publishers.
• Interview with Michael Colgrass, December 17, 1986

• 1932 births
• 2019 deaths
• 20th-century American composers
• 20th-century classical composers
• 21st-century American composers
• 21st-century classical composers
• American classical composers
• American emigrants to Canada
• Canadian classical composers
• Aspen Music Festival and School alumni
• Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music winners
• Musicians from Chicago
• Musicians from Toronto
• Pulitzer Prize for Music winners
• Pupils of Darius Milhaud
• University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign School of Music alumni

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