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American classical composer John Mitchell was born in Hollywood, California on April 26,1941, first son of John Stewart Mitchell, pianist and cousin of Canadian novelist W.O. Mitchell, and Hungarian-born singer Teresa Hideg Mitchell. He studied music composition at the University of California, Los Angeles with Dr. John Vincent, who succeeded Arnold Schoenberg as professor of composition there. In 1965 John Mitchell left UCLA, but he and Dr.Vincent remained close friends until Vincent's death in 1977. Since 1962 Mitchell has been a church music director, organist, and opera coach. At present he is organist of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Santa Monica, California. His compositions include works for solo piano and organ, choral music, chamber music, art songs and operas. In 2000-2005 he wrote two piano sonatas, a song cycle based on T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, a setting of Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came for vocal quartet, a quartet for flute, viola, bassoon and piano, a dance suite for piano, a requiem mass, and song settings of poetry of Anne Sexton. Recent works include song settings of the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges, Delmira Agustini, Emily Dickinson, Federico García Lorca, Kabir, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, James Stephens, Wilfred Owen, César Vallejo, Sylvia Plath and Christina Rossetti. In 2007 he finished Wuthering Heights, a five-part opera cycle nine and a half hours in length based on the novel by Emily Brontë, and is now setting poetry of Charles Bukowski. Mitchell is a member of the American Guild of Organists, the American Music Center, and the Center for Promotion of Contemporary Composers. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Vicky and five cats (Elizabeth, Adolf, Shelley, Isolde and Babalou). To visit their personal page click here.
John Mitchell's comments on music and culture
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The Beauty of Touch
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