STARER, ROBERT

STARER, ROBERT (1924–2001), U.S. composer of Austrian birth. Starer was born in Vienna, where he studied from the age of 13 at the State Academy of Music. After the Anschluss he settled in Jerusalem and continued his studies at the conservatory with josef tal , solomon rosowsky , and oedeon partos . After serving with the British Royal Air Force from 1943 to 1946, he went in 1947 to the U.S. on a Juilliard School of Music postgraduate scholarship, studied with aaron copland in Tanglewood in 1948, and joined Juilliard's faculty in 1949, teaching there until 1974. In 1957 he received American citizenship. In 1966 he was appointed professor of music at Brooklyn College and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he taught until 1991 and was named a Distinguished Professor (1986). Starer was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994) and awarded the Medal of Honor for Science and Art by the president of Austria (1995). He received an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York in 1996. Starer is the author of Rhythmic Training (1969), Basic Rhythmic Training (1986), and an autobiography, Continuo: A Life in Music (1987). Starer wrote a great deal of ballet music, including The Story of Esther for anna sokolow (first performed 1960), The Dybbuk for herbert ross (Berlin Festival, 1960), Samson Agonistes (1961) and Phaedra (1962) for Martha Graham. His operas include The Intruder (1956) and Pantagleize (1973). He also wrote Kohelet (1952); Sabbath Eve Service (1967) Psalms of Woe and Joy (1975); Anna Margarita's Will, (1979); Letter to a Composer, (1994), two symphonies (1950, 1951); three piano concertos (1947, 1953, 1972); violin concerto, 1979/80; viola concerto, 1986; cello concerto, 1988; Nishmat Adam for narrator, choir and orchestra (1990); concerto for two pianos (1996). Starer was a composer of eloquent style in a post-Bergian atonal idiom. His works reflect his encounter in Palestine with Arabic scales and rhythms, and his affinity to jazz he learned in the U.S. He absorbed some influences of the 1960s avant-garde and turned them into vehicles of his penchant for dramatic processes. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grove Music Online. (Yuval Shaked (2nd ed.)