George Crumb, a Grammy-winning composer and Annenberg Professor Emeritus of the Humanities in the department of music in the School of Arts and Sciences, died at age 92 on Feb. 6, his record label Bridge Records announced.
Considered an accomplished avant-garde composer, Crumb gained public recognition as a talented composer in the 1960s and 1970s, the Penn Gazette reported.
Crumb was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Music for his work "Echoes of Time and the River" in 1968 and received a Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for his piece "Star-Child" in 2001, according to NPR. After a creative block in the 1980s and 1990s, Crumb published a series of American Songbooks from 2003 to 2010.
Crumb taught music composition and theory at Annenberg from 1965 to 1997, becoming the Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities in 1983. Prior to becoming a professor at Penn, Crumb taught at the University of Colorado.
Several of Crumb's students went on to become successful composers themselves — including Christopher Rouse, Osvaldo Golijov, and Jennifer Higdon, The New York Times reported.
"Penn was a really exciting school for me. Most of my teaching was private sessions with composition students, and there were a lot of very excellent students in composition — there still are," Crumb told the Penn Gazette in 2019.
Born to two professional musicians, Crumb began composing at age 10. Crumb's composition has been recognized for combining sounds from diverse sources — including African, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian influences, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. His work incorporated a range of instruments and represented a wide array of moods.
Several artists have named Crumb as an influence for their work. In 2003, David Bowie named Crumb's 1972 LP "Black Angels" as one of his favorite albums, Pitchfork reported.
The Annenberg Center honored Crumb in 2019 with a three-day festival showcasing his music, entitled “Zeitgeist: George Crumb at 90.”
Crumb died in his home Media, Pennsylvania on Sunday. He is survived by his wife, pianist Elizabeth May (Brown) Crumb, and two sons, David and Peter.
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