Born in New York, the American composer, pianist and conductor Leon Kirchner studied with Bloch, Schoenberg and Sessions, among others, and, after other teaching appointments, taught from 1961 to 1989 at Harvard.

Stage, Vocal and Instrumental Music

Kirchner’s opera Lily, based on Saul Bellow, was staged in New York in 1977 and was developed from an earlier vocal work. His orchestral music includes two piano concertos and two cello concertos, and his chamber music three string quartets and two piano trios. Other instrumental works include two piano sonatas and compositions for solo violin and for violin and piano. Self-styled a Romantic, he wrote at first in a style influenced by Schoenberg and by Alban Berg before developing his own personal musical language.