Bernard Rands obituary: The Yorkshire-born classical composer who won a Pulitzer Prize
Bernard Rands, who has died at 92, was a Yorkshire-born classical composer based in the US who won a Pulitzer Prize for Canti del Sole (Songs of the Sun), his 1984 song cycle for tenor and orchestra ensemble.
The piece, a rapturous composition reflecting on the human condition, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta. It was part of a catalogue of more than 100 published works and many recordings.
His large orchestral suite Le Tambourin, won the 1986 Kennedy Center Friedheim Award and Canti d’Amor, recorded by Chanticleer, won a Grammy in 2000.
In June, 2014, the BBC’s three-day Focus festival was devoted entirely to Rands’ music with many orchestra and chamber concerts live and broadcast throughout Europe.
Rands was born in Sheffield in March 1934 and studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition in Germany and Milan.
He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and York University before emigrating to the United States in 1975. He became a US citizen in 1983.
He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004 and into the Illinois Lincoln Academy in 2014.
Rands is survived by his third wife, the composer Augusta Read Thomas, and by two sons from his first marriage.