Phillip Ramey is an American composer, pianist, and writer on music.

He studied composition with the Russian-born composer Alexander Tcherepnin

Alexander Tcherepnin

Alexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian-born composer and pianist. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin and his son, Ivan Tcherepnin were also composers, as are two of his grandsons, Sergei and Stefan. His son Serge was involved in the roots of electronic music and instruments...

 from 1959 to 1962, first at the International Academy of Music in Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, then at DePaul University

DePaul University

DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...

 in Chicago. He later studied composition with Jack Beeson

Jack Beeson

Jack Beeson was an American composer. He was known particularly for his operas, the best known of which are Lizzie Borden, Hello Out There! and The Sweet Bye and Bye.-Biography:...

 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 (1962-65). Ramey has had professional associations with Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

, Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber

Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...

, Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, Virgil Thomson

Virgil Thomson

Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...

, William Schuman

William Schuman

William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...

, David Diamond

David Diamond

David Diamond is the name of:* David Diamond , American composer* David Diamond * David Diamond , American screenwriter* David Diamond, frontman and songwriter with Canadian band The Kings...

 and Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz    was a Russian-American classical virtuoso pianist and minor composer. His technique and use of tone color and the excitement of his playing were legendary. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Life and early...

. For many years, he was a close friend and a neighbor of Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles

Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...

 in Tangier

Tangier

Tangier, also Tangiers is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel...

, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

.

Ramey is the composer of orchestral works including three piano concertos, chamber music, and many works for solo piano, among them seven 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

Leonard Slatkin

Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...

, with Philip Myers

Philip Myers

Philip Myers is a noted American horn player. Myers plays a F/B-flat/f alto Engelbert Schmid Triple Horn. He currently owns five horns, down from a high at one time of 17...

 as soloist.http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/leonard_slatkin/index.html?offset=70& 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

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

. He is also the author of Irving Fine

Irving Fine

Irving Gifford Fine was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neo-classical, romantic and, later, serial elements...

: An American Composer in His Time, which received the 2006 ASCAP

American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization that protects its members' musical copyrights by monitoring public performances of their music, whether via a broadcast or live performance, and compensating them...

 Deems Taylor

Deems Taylor

Joseph Deems Taylor was a U.S. composer, music critic, and promoter of classical music.-Career:Taylor initially planned to become an architect; however, despite minimal musical training he soon took to music composition. The result was a series of works for orchestra and/or voices...

/Nicolas Slonimsky

Nicolas Slonimsky

Nicolas Slonimsky was a Russian born American composer, conductor, musician, music critic, lexicographer and author. He described himself as a "diaskeuast" ; "a reviser or interpolator."- Life :...

Award for Outstanding Musical Biography.

In 2010 Ramey completed his autobiography.

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 Percussion
• 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
• 1974 - Concerto for Chamber Orchestra
• 1976 - Piano Concerto No. 2
• 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
• 1991-94 - Piano Concerto No. 3
• 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 Piano
• 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 Richard 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 (Sonata-Fantasia)
• 2008 - Dream Preludes for Trumpet and Piano
• 2008 - Ballade for Clarinet and Horn
• 2008 - Blue Phantom for Piano
• 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)
• 2010 - Slavic Rhapsody (The Novgorod Kremlin at Night) for Piano
• 2010 - Bagatelle on "Dies Irae" for Piano
• 2010-11 - Piano Sonata No. 7
• 2011 - Bagatelle on "Panis Angelicus" for Piano
• 2011 - Manhattan Soundings for Piano

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: Color Etudes, Memorial--In Memoriam Alexander Tcherepnin, Chromatic Waltz, Piano Sonata No. 1, Piano Sonata No. 2, Piano Sonata No. 5--for the Left Hand, Piano Fantasy, Four Tangier Portraits, Toccata No. 2.
• 2008 - Phillip Ramey Piano Music, Volume Two: 1966-2007. Mirian Conti, pianist. CD. Toccata Classics, TOCC 0077: Diversions, Epigrams Book One, Leningrad Rag--Mutations on Scott Joplin, Winter Nocturne, Toccata No. 1, Ode for F.D.R., Toccata No. 2, Piano Sonata No. 4, Primitivo.
• 2011 - Phillip Ramey Piano Music, Volume Three: 1960-2010. Stephen Gosling, pianist. CD. Toccata Classics, TOCC 0114: Suite, Two Short Pieces, Toccata Giocosa, Slavic Rhapsody (The Novgorod Kremlin at Night), Burlesque-Paraphrase on a Theme of Stephen Foster, Bagatelle on "Dies Irae", Djebel Bani (A Saharan Meditation), Blue Phantom, Piano Sonata No. 6 (Sonata-Fantasia).
• Scheduled for release in 2012 - Phillip Ramey Piano Music, Volume Four: 1959-2011. Stephen Gosling, pianist. CD. Toccata Classics: Incantations, Cossack Variations, Three Early Preludes, Piano Sonata No. 3, Epigrams Book Two, Lament for Richard III, Piano Sonata No. 7.

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
• http://www.tcherepnin.com/alex/bio_alex.htm Biographical article on Alexander Tcherepnin