Perry Goldstein studied at the University of Illinois, UCLA, and Columbia University, from which he was awarded a doctorate in music composition in 1986. His principal composition teachers were Herbert Brun, Chou Wen-Chung, Mario Davidovsky, Ben Johnston, and Paul Zonn. He has received commissions from Juilliard Quartet cellist Joel Krosnick and pianist Gilbert Kalish, saxophonist William Raaiman and the Zephyr String Quartet, The Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, Slagwerkgroep den Haag, HET Trio, violist John Graham, the Guild Trio, and pianist Eliza Garth, among others, and his music has been performed throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. Recordings of his work are available on Challenge, New World, and Vanguard compact disks.
A dedicated educator, he received a 1997 "Chancellor's and President's Award for Excellence in Teaching" from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he has taught since 1992. He has also served on the faculty of the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. Goldstein has been involved in a variety of activities in the service of contemporary music. He has written extensively for, among other publications and organizations, The New York Times, The Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, Strings Magazine, National Public Radio, Deutschlandfunk (German radio), the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, Speculum Musicae, the League-International Society for Contemporary Music, and for the New World, CRI, Arabesque, GM, Folkways, and Bridge recording labels. He serves on a number of new music boards and has been an adjudicator and advisor for several organizations. In 1992, he was the United States delegate to the UNESCO-sponsored International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, subsequently producing four radio programs of the event for American Public Radio.
