Robert Parris Photo from the American Music Center Archive

Robert Parris, composer of more than 80 works and Professor of Music at George Washington University in Washington, DC, died at George Washington University Hospital on December 5, 1999. He was 75 and lived in Chevy Chase, MD. The cause was lung cancer. Born in Philadelphia in 1924, Mr. Parris settled in the Washington area in 1952 after returning from a year of study with Arthur Honegger as a Fulbright fellow in Paris. He had previously attended The Juilliard School and The University of Pennsylvania. Among his other composition mentors were such important figures as Jacques Ibert, Peter Mennin and Aaron Copland. He joined the faculty of The George Washington University in 1963 where he taught theory and composition. Composer, pianist and sometime music critic (he wrote for The Washington Post and the now defunct Washington Evening Star in the 1960s and 1970s), Parris received numerous awards, grants, and commissions and had many of his works performed on recordings and around the world. His Symphonic Variations was commissioned and premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich in 1987, and his Concerto for Five Kettledrums was premiered by the National Symphony in 1958. A retrospective concert of his works at The George Washington University in 1988 led Washington Post music critic Joseph McLellan to refer to Mr. Parris as "one of [Washington's] major music assets." He is survived by his wife, Anna Elkes Parris; a daughter, Laura Parris of Chevy Chase; and a brother, Tony Parris of Philadelphia.

from Sonata for Violin Solo 20 seconds Curtis Macomber, violin