biography
Fred Lerdahl's music has been commissioned and performed by major chamber ensembles and orchestras in the United States and around the world, and he has been resident composer at leading institutions and festivals. His music is published by Schott Music Corporation and has been widely recorded for various labels, notably Bridge Records, which has produced a series of CDs devoted to his music.
His seminal book A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, co-authored with linguist Ray Jackendoff, is a founding document for the field of the cognitive science of music. His subsequent book, Tonal Pitch Space, which extends ideas developed in the earlier book, won the 2003 distinguished book award from the Society for Music Theory. A third book, Composition and Cognition, brings together his dual activity as composer and theorist. A fourth book, The Sounds of Poetry Viewed as Music, develops an original theory of prosody conceived in musical terms.
Lerdahl studied at Lawrence, Princeton, and Tanglewood. He taught at UC/Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan, and finally Columbia, where he was Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition and head of the composition program for 20 years.
Lerdahl is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Three of his works composed since 2000--Time after Time for chamber ensemble, the Third String Quartet, and Arches for cello and chamber orchestra--have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in music.