Barney Childs (1926-2000) was a scholar and a composer. He attended the University of Nevada where he earned his B.A and as a Rhodes Scholar, he went on to earn a B.A. and M.A. in English language and literature at Oxford University. In addition, he earned a Ph.D. in English and music from Stanford University.
Childs was largely a self-taught composer, but studied briefly in the 1950s with Carlos Chavez and Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. Many of his pieces were performed throughout the United States by the late 1950s.
As a teacher, he began his career at the University of Arizona from 1961-65. He later advanced to dean of Deep Springs College from 1965-69 and served as composer-in-residence from 1969-71 at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee. The remainder of his career was spent teaching with Johnston College and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Redlands.
Childs served as poetry editor of Genesis West and co-editor of The New Instrumentation book series. He was co-founder of Advance Recordings and served as an associate editor for Perspectives of New Music. Together with Phillip Rehfeldt (University of Redlands), Childs was a performing participant in the commissioning series Music for Clarinet and Friend. He also served as co-editor (with Elliott Schwartz) of the book Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music. He completed 160 compositions and the poetry text The Poetry-I Book.
Portrait courtesy the American Composers Alliance
