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Ronald Perera

Composer News


Ronald Perera

b. 1941 - d. 2023

Composer website link

Ronald Perera was born in Boston on Christmas Day, 1941. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music from Harvard, where his principal composition teacher was Leon Kirchner. He also worked independently with Randall Thompson. Subsequently he spent a year on a John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship studying electronic music at the University of Utrecht. His more than seventy compositions include three operas, song cycles, chamber, choral and orchestral works and ”in the early part of his career" several works which combine voices or instruments with electronically generated sounds.

He was especially known for his many text settings. Reviewing the recording of his cantata, The Outermost House, John Story of Fanfare magazine wrote: "Ronald Perera is among the finest living combiners of words and music."

Mr. Perera has been the recipient of awards or fellowships from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation, and Harvard University. His music has been performed by many conductors, soloists, and ensembles both in this country and abroad. His music is published by E. C. Schirmer, Boosey and Hawkes, Music Associates of New York, and Pear Tree Press Music Publishers, and is recorded on the Albany, CRI, Navona and Opus One labels.

Mr. Perera retired in 2002 from a thirty-year teaching career at Smith College, where he was the Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music.

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  1. Five Summer Songs
    SKU: 0161*
    Mezzo-Soprano and Piano or Chamber Orchestra
    Perera, Ronald
  2. Music, When Soft Voices Die
    SKU: 8989*
    SSAA Chorus and Piano
    Perera, Ronald
  3. Crossing the Meridian (Reduced Full Score)
    SKU: 4097
    Tenor/High Voice, Chamber Ensemble
    Perera, Ronald
  4. Aria
    SKU: 8357
    Organ Solo
    Perera, Ronald
  5. A Soldier's Carol
    SKU: 8320*
    SATB Chorus unaccompanied
    Perera, Ronald
  6. The Garden Hymn
    SKU: 2715
    SATB
    Perera, Ronald
  7. The Garden Hymn
    SKU: 6217
    TBB, a cappella
    Perera, Ronald
  8. Laudato sie, mi signore from Canticle of the Sun
    SKU: 4084*
    SATB, Keyboard (Organ or Piano) or Electronic Media [CD]
    Perera, Ronald
  9. as freedom is a breakfastfood
    SKU: 4094
    SSA/SSAA, SAB
    Perera, Ronald
  10. Bright Angels
    SKU: 0244*
    Organ, Percussion, Electronic Media
    Perera, Ronald
  11. Chamber Concerto (Study Score)
    SKU: 4096
    Chamber Ensemble/Band
    Perera, Ronald
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