biography

Gloria Coates was born in Wausau, Wisconsin in 1938. She began composing at an early age and received her first composition prize at the age of fourteen. She studied at Louisiana State University and Columbia University in New York, earning a number of degrees, including a Master of Music in Composition with postgraduate studies. Her principal composition teachers were Alexander Tcherepnin and Otto Luening.

After moving to Munich in 1969 she devoted her time primarily to composition. She organized the German-American Music Series, presented the results of her experiments with multiphonic vocal technique at the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music in 1972 and founded the European section of the International League of Women Composers

Her breakthrough as a composer came with the premiere of her "Music on Open Strings” at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1978. The same work was performed in the Musica Viva Series of the Bavarian Radio in Munich in 1980 and was a finalist for the International Koussevitzky Prize in 1986. She was invited to the first Moscow Festival for New Music in 1981 and in 1984 she lectured on her music at Harvard University.

Her extensive œuvre includes all the musical genres except opera: orchestral works (including eight symphonies), vocal music with piano and orchestral accompaniment, numerous chamber-music works for two to nine instruments (including five string quartets), solo instrumental pieces, choral works and music for the theater.

“Gloria Coates avoided any association to any ‘school’ or direction of composing, and accordingly, her music defies any label or categorization. Here in Germany, one readily notices the American aspect of her works; the uncramped matter of course in intimately relating and associating with the materials and techniques. However, in the USA she recently was asked, ‘Is that how they compose in Germany?'"
Gisela Glagla-Schubert

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