Composer/Lecturer
Emma Lou Diemer is an American composer born in Kansas City, Missouri. She received her degrees in composition from the Yale School of Music (BM, MM) and the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D.) and had further composition study on a Fulbright Scholarship in Brussels, Belgium, and at the Berkshire Music Center. She is a keyboard performer (piano, organ, harpsichord, synthesizer).
She has received awards in composition from the National Endowment for the Arts (in electronic music), the Ford Foundation, the Kennedy Center (Friedheim award for her 1991 piano concerto), ASCAP (annual award since 1962 for performances and publications), the American Guild of Organists (1995 Composer of the Year), Yale School of Music (Certificate of Merit), and many others. She has been the recipient of numerous commissions and most of her music has been published, ranging from orchestral works and concertos to solo and chamber works and choral music. Seven doctoral dissertations have been written on her music to-date.
Diemer’s music has been recorded by CRS (including a CD recording of Variations for Piano, 4 Hands), Living Artists Recordings (String Quartet No. 1), Vienna Modern Masters (Encore for Piano), Master Musicians Collective (Concerto in One Movement for Piano and Santa Barbara Overture), and others.
Principal positions have been Composer-in-Residence in the Arlington, VA schools under the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project; Composer-in-Residence with the Santa Barbara Symphony; Professor of Theory and Composition, University of Maryland; Professor of Theory and Composition, University of California, Santa Barbara (now Professor Emeritus); resident organist in various churches (presently First Presbyterian Church, Santa Barbara).
Possible lecture topics:
- The Woman Composer
- Composing for Voices
- Composing for Keyboard
- Composing for Something Other Than the New York Philharmonic or the Vienna Boys Choir