Welcome

Thank you for checking out my website. I am a composer of concert music (music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, and soloists) and a professor of music at MIT.

Please visit the Compositions page to see a list of works, and the Recordings page to see a list of CD recordings. Sound samples are also available through most streaming services (e.g. Spotify), as well as SoundCloud, YouTube, and through the player on this site.

In recent years I have collaborated extensively with visual artist Lina Viste Grønli and made music for exhibitions in Paris and Nogent-sur-Marne (France), Andratx, (Majorca, Spain), Bergen and Stavanger (Norway), and New York and Cambridge (USA). My most recent composition is Six Dances of Death, from woodcuts by Holbein the Younger and music by Henry VIII. The subject matter, and the dates of the piece—it was written between the fall of 2019 and the spring of 2020 for a premiere that was ultimately cancelled, like most public events in that period—link the piece inextricably in my mind to the coronavirus pandemic.

At MIT I teach composition, harmony and counterpoint, tonal composition, and musical analysis. The atmosphere of innovation, experimentation, and intellectual freedom at MIT, and the constant contact with brilliant minds among my colleagues and my students, have been sources of encouragement and inspiration to me for most of my professional life.

Please contact me at child@mit.edu if you would like more information about me or my music.