Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss (born Lukas Fuchs, August 15, 1922 in Berlin, Germany) is an American composer, conductor, pianist, and professor. He studied with Julius Goldstein. He moved to Paris in 1933 where he studied piano with Lazare Lévy, composition with Noël Gallon, orchestration with Felix Wolfes, and flute with Louis Moyse. In 1937 he moved to America and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, with Sergei Koussevitzky during the summers from 1939 to 1943 at the Berkshire Music Center, and, as a special student, composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale University from 1939 to 1940.

Foss was appointed professor of music at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1953, replacing Arnold Schoenberg. While there he founded the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble. He founded the Center for Creative and Performing Arts in 1963 while at the University at Buffalo. He has been Professor of Music, Theory, and Composition at Boston University since 1991. His notable students include Claire Polin.

He is grouped in the "Boston school" along with Arthur Berger, Irving Fine, Alexei Haieff, Harold Shapero, and Claudio Spies.

His early works are neoclassical in style, using controlled improvisation and chance procedures with the twelve tone technique and serialism, while his later works are polystylistic.

Works (selected)
	title	movements	date	notes
1.	Piano Concerto Number 1	Allegro Andante Allegro	1943	Originally a clarinet concerto, rewritten for piano and orchestra.
2.	Piano Concerto Number 2	Allegro sostenuto Adagietto Allegro vivace	1949-1951, revised 1952	Modeled after Beethoven's Emperor Concerto.
3.	Time Cycle		1960
4.	Echoi		1963
5.	Baroque Variations	On a Handel Larghetto On a Scarlatti Sonata On a Bach prelude "Phorion"	1967
6.	Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird		1978
7.	Elegy for Anne Frank		1989	Composed to commemorate 60th birthday anniversary of Anne Frank. Includes optional narration.
8.	Renaissance Concerto		1990

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