Biography

Composer/conductor Donald Crockett is chair of the composition department and director of the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble, and senior composer-in-residence with the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East. He has received commissions from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (composer-in-residence 1991-97), Kronos Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Stanford String Quartet and the California EAR Unit, among many others. Recent projects include commissions from the Hilliard Ensemble, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and a work for piano and orchestra commissioned by USC for its 125th anniversary. Professor Crockett’s music has also been widely performed by ensembles including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Arditti Quartet; at the Tanglewood and Aspen festivals; and by artists including violinists Ida Kavafian and Michelle Makarski, mezzo soprano Janice Felty, oboist Allan Vogel and conductors Jorge Mester, JoAnn Falletta, Hugh Wolff, Jeffrey Kahane and Christof Perick. He has received the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a commission from the Barlow Endowment, an Aaron Copland Award and the first Sylvia Goldstein Award from the Copland House and a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, as well as grants and awards from the American Music Center, BMI, the Copland Fund, Meet the Composer and the National Endowment for the Arts. His music is published by MMB Music and Doberman-Yppan and recorded on the Albany, CRI, ECM, Laurel, Orion and Pro Arte/Fanfare labels.

Also active as a conductor of new music, professor Crockett has presented many world, national and regional premieres with the Los Angeles-based new music ensemble Xtet, the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble and as a guest conductor with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Hilliard Ensemble and the California EAR Unit. His recordings as a conductor can be found on the ECM, New World and CRI labels.