Carlton Gamer

Carlton Edwin Wesley Gamer (February 13, 1929 – July 14, 2023) was an American composer and music theorist. Gamer composed more than seventy works in a variety of genres, including songs, music for dance, solo piano pieces, chamber music, choral works, orchestral works, and computer music. His compositional approach has been fundamentally shaped by his theoretical interests, the latter influenced by an interest in mathematics. He taught at Colorado College, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan; he studied at Northwestern University and Boston University and later privately with Roger Sessions. Life and career Gamer was born in Chicago on February 13, 1929. He grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where his father taught at the University of Illinois. At the age of eight he began to study piano with Tanya Kessler and composition with her husband Hubert Kessler. From 1942 to 1946, Gamer attended University High School in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. In New York City, from 1951 to 1953, Gamer founded a workshop of composer-performers (“The Seven”) He was also the pianist, composer, and music director for dancer and choreographer Ilka Suarez and her company. After stu