Born inNew Haven, Connecticut, he went toYale University where his teachers includedHoratio Parker andDavid Stanley Smith. Porter received two awards while studying music at Yale: the Osborne Prize for Fugue, and the Steinert Prize for orchestral composition. He performed the winning composition, a violin concerto, at graduation. Porter earned two degrees at Yale, an A.B. from Yale College and a Mus. B from the music school.
After graduation, he spent a year in Paris, studying atSchola Cantorum, then went to New York where he studied withErnest Bloch andVincent d'Indy. In 1923 Porter joined the faculty of theCleveland Institute of Music where he was later appointed head of the Theory Department. He remained there until 1928 when he resigned to focus on composition. Returning to Paris on aGuggenheim Fellowship Porter began composing in earnest. During his 3 years in Paris, he composed Blues Lointains (1928), the Suite for Viola Alone (1930), his 3rd String Quartet (1930), 4th String Quartet (1931), his 2nd Violin Sonata (1929), and his Piano Sonata (1930). During the first trip, his daughter, Helen, was born.
In 1931 Porter returned to the United States, first rejoining the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music, then teaching atVassar, where he was appointed a professor in 1932. In 1954, Porter's 1953 Concerto Concertante, aconcerto for two pianos and orchestra, was awarded thePulitzer Prize for Music. Music historian Nicholas Tawa calls the piece, "affectively compelling,orchestrally luminous, andcontrapuntally active"; cooperative rather than competitive.[3] In 1938 later Porter became dean (1938–42) and then director (1942–46) of theNew England Conservatory of Music, and in 1946 returned to Yale, as professor, to teach until 1965. His students there includedNatalia Raigorodsky.[4] Porter also served, from 1958 until his death, as chairman of the board of directors of theAmerican Music Center, which he had founded withHoward Hanson andAaron Copland in 1939. He died inBethany, Connecticut[clarification needed].
Two violin sonatas (1926,[7] 1929; second recorded in the 1950s and more recently, 1st given its premiere recording in the late 1990s) (also an early sonata from 1919 has been recorded)
American Music for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Composers: Morton Gould, Walter Piston, Quincy Porter; Conductor, David Amos; Artists: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Joshua Pierce, Dorothy Jonas (1999)
Ernest Bloch: Concerti Grossi 1 & 2/ Quincy Porter: Ukrainian Suite, Ernest Bloch, Quincy Porter, Donald Barra, andSan Diego Chamber Orchestra (1994)
Violin Sonatas: Copland, Piston, Porter;Linda Rosenthal, violin with Lisa Bergman, piano (1993)
American Chamber Music by Diamond, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Schifrin, Hermann Ives, Bernard Herrmann, Quincy Porter, and Charles Ives (1992)
