Barney Childs

Barney Sanford Childs (February 13, 1926 – January 11, 2000) was an American composer and teacher. Born in Spokane, Washington, he taught and composed avant-garde music and literature at universities in the United States and United Kingdom. Childs and Elliott Schwartz edited the 1967 anthology Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music; a revised and expanded edition, co-edited with Jim Fox, was published in 1998 by Da Capo Press. Music He was a musical autodidact till his association in the 1950s with Leonard Ratner and Elliott Carter in New York and with Aaron Copland and Carlos Chavez at Tanglewood . He was associated later with double bass player Bertram Turetzky and clarinet player Phillip Rehfeldt. He wrote several pieces for these and other players, often using extended techniques. Much of his music employs improvisation and indeterminacy (see his “Roachville Project,” 1967). However, his influences are diverse and include jazz artists, John Cage, Charles Ives, and Paul Hindemith. Childs won the Koussevitzky Award at Tanglewood in 1954. Education and teaching career Trained originally as a literary scholar, Childs studied at Deep Springs College (1943–45), the University o