Peter Lieberson

Biography

Peter Goddard Lieberson (25 October 1946 – 23 April 2011) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. His song cycles include two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: Rilke Songs and Neruda Songs; the latter won the 2008 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition and both were written for his wife, the mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. His three piano concertos were each premiered by the pianist Peter Serkin, with the 1st and 3rd also being Pulitzer finalists.

Early life

Peter Goddard Lieberson was born in New York City. He was the son of ballerina and choreographer Vera Zorina (née Eva Brigitta Hartwig) and Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records. Lieberson studied composition with Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Donald Martino, and Martin Boykan. After completing his musical studies at Columbia University, he left New York in 1976 for Boulder, Colorado, to continue his studies with Chögyam Trungpa, a Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist master. It was there he met and married Ellen Kearney, a fellow student of Trungpa's. At their teacher's request, the Liebersons moved from Boulder to Boston, Massachusetts, to co-direct Shambhala Training, a meditation and cultural program. Lieberson earned a Ph.D. from Brandeis University. From 1984 to 1988 he taught at Harvard University. He then became international director of Halifax Shambhala Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Musical career

Beginning in 1994, Lieberson devoted his time entirely to composition. He met his second wife, mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, in 1997, during the Santa Fe Opera production of his work Ashoka's Dream; they married in 1999 after Lieberson and his first wife were divorced. He wrote his song cycles Rilke Songs and Neruda Songs for Hunt Lieberson. The Neruda Songs, a cycle of songs set to love poems by Pablo Neruda, were co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony; the world premiere was given on 20 May 2005, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and Hunt Lieberson as soloist. The Boston Symphony performed the work in November 2005 with Hunt Lieberson as soloist and James Levine conducting, followed by performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Robert Spano conducting. Hunt Lieberson died of breast cancer in July 2006, aged 52. Nonesuch released a commercial recording of the Boston/Levine performance of the Neruda Songs in 2006.
In December 2007, Lieberson won the 2008 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for Neruda Songs. Two different recordings of the Rilke Songs but Hunt Lieberson, one a studio production and the other a concert recording, have also been issued on the Bridge Records, Inc. label.
Lieberson was commissioned by the Boston Symphony to compose another cycle of Neruda songs, which became the Songs of Love and Sorrow. When he returned to the work, it was no longer simply a memorial and farewell to Hunt Lieberson, but also reflected the influence of his daughters and his third wife, Rinchen Lhamo. Lieberson had three daughters from his first marriage, all of whom are members of the band TEEN.
Shortly after Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's death, Lieberson was diagnosed with lymphoma. Despite the debilitating effects of the illness and its treatment, Lieberson went on composing. Though thought to have achieved full remission, he died from complications of the disease in 2011 in Tel Aviv, Israel. He had been living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the time of his death.