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Phillip Ramey (b. Elmhurst, Illinois, United States, September 12, 1939) is an American composer, pianist, and writer on music.
He studied composition with the Russian-born composer Alexander Tcherepnin from 1959 to 1962, first at the International Academy of Music in Nice, France, then at DePaul University in Chicago. He later studied composition with Jack Beeson at Columbia University (1962-65).
Ramey has had professional associations with Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Virgil Thomson, William Schuman, David Diamond and Vladimir Horowitz. For many years, he was a close friend and a neighbor of Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco.
Ramey is the composer of orchestral works including three piano concertos, chamber music, and many works for solo piano, among them six sonatas. In 1993 his Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to celebrate its 150th Anniversary, was premiered by that orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, with Philip Myers as soloist. His music has been published by Boosey & Hawkes, G. Schirmer, C. F. Peters, and Edward B. Marks, among other firms.
He is the author of several hundred liner notes and interviews with American composers, and served from 1977 to 1993 as the annotator and Program Editor for the New York Philharmonic. He is also the author of Irving Fine: An American Composer in His Time, which received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor/Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography.
In 2008 Ramey completed his autobiography and also wrote a novella which is scheduled to be filmed in Morocco.
Compositions
(Selected)
- 1960-63 - Suite for Piano
- 1960 - Incantations for Piano
- 1961 - Piano Sonata No. 1
- 1962 - Sonata for Three Unaccompanied Timpani
- 1962 - Concert Suite for Piano and Small Orchestra (revised, reorchestrated and expanded 1984 as Concert Suite for Piano and Orchestra)
- 1962 - Cat Songs for Soprano, Flute and Piano (text: T. S. Eliot)
- 1965 - Seven, They Are Seven: Incantation for Bass-Baritone and Orchestra (text: Konstantin Balmont)
- 1966 - Diversions for Piano
- 1966 - Piano Sonata No. 2
- 1967 - Epigrams for Piano, Book I
- 1967 - Orchestral Discourse
- 1967 - Night Music for Percussion
- 1968 - Piano Sonata No. 3
- 1968 - Harvard Bells, Soundpiece for Piano
- 1968 - Toccata Breva for Achmed
- 1969-71 - Piano Concerto No. 1
- 1969-72 - Piano Fantasy
- 1971 - Suite for Violin and Piano
- 1972 - Leningrad Rag (Mutations on Scott Joplin) for Piano
- 1977 - Memorial (In Memoriam Alexander Tcherepnin) for Piano
- 1977 - Arabesque for Solo Flute
- 1979 - La Citadelle, Rhapsody for Oboe and Piano
- 1980 - A William Blake Trilogy for Soprano and Piano
- 1981/85 - Cossack Variations for Piano
- 1981 - Fanfare-Sonata for Solo Trumpet
- 1982 - Canzona for Piano
- 1982-86 - Moroccan Songs to Words of Paul Bowles for High Voice and Piano
- 1984 - Phantasm for Flute and Violin (or Two Violins)
- 1985 - Proclamation for Orchestra (Orchestration of Aaron Copland's Proclamation for Piano)
- 1985 - Capriccio (Improvisation on a Theme from Youth) for Piano
- 1986 - Toccata No. 1 for Piano
- 1986 - Epigrams for Piano, Book II
- 1987-88 - Piano Sonata No. 4
- 1987-93 - Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra
- 1989 - Piano Sonata No. 5 (For the Left Hand)
- 1990 - Toccata No. 2 for Piano
- 1990 - Burlesque-Paraphrase on a Theme of Stephen Foster for Piano
- 1991-99 - Tangier Portraits for Piano
- 1992 - Rhapsody for Solo Cello
- 1992 - Café of the Ghosts: Fantasy-Trio on a Moroccan Beggar's Song for Violin, Cello and Piano
- 1993 - Trio Concertant for Violin, Horn and Piano
- 1993 - Chromatic Waltz for Piano
- 1994 - Color Etudes for Piano
- 1994 - Praeludium for Five Horns
- 1995 - Gargoyles for Solo Horn
- 1995 - Elegy for Horn and Achmed
- 1996 - Concertino for Four Horns, Timpani and Percussion
- 1997 - Sonata-Ballade for Two Horns and Piano
- 1997 - Dialogue for Two Horns
- 1997 - Phantoms (Ostinato Etude) for Piano
- 1998 - Sonata for Harpsichord
- 1998 - Effigies for Viola and Piano
- 2001 - Lament for Achmed III for Piano
- 2002 - Color Etudes for Piano and Orchestra (arranged from Color Etudes for Piano)
- 2002 - Orchestral Epigrams
- 2003 - Winter Nocturne for Piano
- 2004 - Ode for F.D.R. for Piano
- 2007 - Primitivo for Piano
- 2007 - J.F.K.: Oration for Speaker and Orchestra (text from speeches of President Kennedy)
- 2008 - Piano Sonata No. 6
- 2008 - Dream Preludes for Trumpet and Piano
- 2008 - Ballade for Clarinet and Horn
- 2009 - Djebel Bani (A Saharan Meditation) for Piano
- 2009 - Simon Songs: Six Poems for Baritone and Piano (text: John Simon)
- 2009 - Simon Songs: Suite for Baritone and Orchestra (text: John Simon)
Recordings
- 1965 - Electronic Music. LP. Vox Turnabout. Carlos, Walter, Dialogues for piano and two loudspeakers with Phillip Ramey, pianist.
- 1975 - Carlos, Wendy (né Walter). Walter Carlos, By Request. LP. Columbia. Re-released as Wendy Carlos, By Request on enhanced CD in 2003 by East Side Digital (Minneapolis, Minnesota). Performed by Wendy Carlos, synthesizer; with Phillip Ramey, pianist (4th and 5th works: Dialogues for piano and two loudspeakers and Episodes for piano and electronic sounds).
- 1978 - Opus One, No. 37. LP. Leningrad Rag, Piano Fantasy, Piano Sonata No. 4 (Subsequently retitled Harvard Bells: Soundpiece), John Atkins, pianist.
- 1984 - American Piano Music. Etcetera Records, KTC 1019. CD. Phillip Ramey: Piano Fantasy, Bennett Lerner, pianist.
- 1986 - American Piano Music, Volume Two. Etcetera Records, KTC 1036. CD. Phillip Ramey: Canzona, Bennett Lerner, pianist.
- 2006 - Phillip Ramey Piano Music, 1961-2003. Stephen Gosling, pianist. CD. Toccata Classics, TOCC 0029.
- 2008 - Phillip Ramey Piano Music, Volume Two: 1966-2007. Mirian Conti, pianist. CD. Toccata Classics, TOCC 0077.
Books
- Ramey, Phillip. Irving Fine: An American Composer in His Time. Hillsdale, New York/Washington, D. C.: Pendragon Press, in association with the U. S. Library of Congress, 2005.
- Ramey, Phillip. Sergei Prokofiev: The Modern Classicist. Time-Life booklet, 1975.
- Ramey, Phillip. Rachmaninoff: His Life and Times. Funk & Wagnalls booklet, 1975
External links
- Interview with Phillip Ramey about Irving Fine biography
- Paul Bowles memoir
- Phillip Ramey page from New Music Jukebox site
- Biographical article on Alexander Tcherepnin