Charles_Fussell
Charles Fussell
American classical composer
Charles Clement Fussell (born February 14, 1938, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina)[1] is an American composer and conductor of contemporary classical music. He has composed six symphonies and three operas.[2] His symphony Wilde for solo baritone and orchestra, based on the life of Oscar Wilde and premiered by the Newton Symphony Orchestra and the baritone Sanford Sylvan in 1990, was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Music.[3][4] He received a citation and award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1992.[2][5][6]
Fussell received advanced degrees in composition and conducting from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Thomas Canning and Bernard Rogers. He received a Fulbright grant to study at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where he worked with Boris Blacher. He also attended the Bayreuth masterclasses of Friedelind Wagner.[2][6] In 1964 he received a Ford Foundation grant to be a composer-in-residence in the Newton, Massachusetts public school system.[7] He was an assistant and close friend of the composer Virgil Thomson.[8] He served as the president of the Thomson Foundation for many years.[6]
Fussell has served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the North Carolina School of the Arts (1976–1977), Boston University (1983–2003), and Rutgers University.[1]