Christopher Kies
(Photo credit: UNH)
Read about Chris in the Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association November 2023 Spotlight!
CHRISTOPHER KIES is a Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., where he taught piano, theory, and composition from 1979 to 2020. His principal composition teachers were Donald Martino and Arthur Berger, and he earned Bachelor degrees in composition and piano from the New England Conservatory and an M.F.A and Ph.D. in composition from Brandeis University. Throughout the 1970’s he was a founding member and pianist of Collage New Music, a noted contemporary music ensemble in Boston.
As a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, Kies studied in Köln, Germany, and he has twice been awarded Individual Artist Fellowships in composition from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. In 2011, he won first prize in the Longfellow Chorus International Composers Competition in Portland, Maine, and his chamber music has been performed at International Double Reed Society conferences in Greensboro, North Carolina and Ithaca, New York.
Both as a composer and as a performer, Kies has long been a fan of piano ragtime. His works include several piano ragtime solos as well as two one-movement ragtime concertos: Academic Festival Rag for piano and wind ensemble (or orchestra) 2012, and Introduction and Ragtime for clarinet and orchestra (or piano) 2011.
In recent years, his compositions have often featured the combination of music and narration for young audiences, including Little Red Riding Hood written for a variety of small ensembles as well as for orchestra or band with narrator. These pieces go equally well with the text of Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, i.e. with words from the Anguished Languish created by Howard L. Chace. Also in this genre, he composed The Amazing Bone for trombone, piano and narrator, and Amos and Boris for flute, bass trombone, piano and narrator (both works based on stories by prize-winning children's author, William Steig). In 2002, he composed a sequel to Camille Saint-Saens’ iconic Le Carnaval des Animaux entitled Le Tombeau de Saint-Saens, based on poems of Ogden Nash and now available in versions for orchestra, wind ensemble, brass quintet or woodwind quintet plus narrator.
In 2006, his "Franklin Portrait" for orchestra, double chorus and narrator was performed by student musicians from Franklin high school (Franklin, MA) in celebration of the tercentenary of Ben Franklin's birth. Other compositions include a ballet, a ballet suite for orchestra, numerous works for mixed chorus, treble choir and children's chorus, music for solo piano, piano four-hands, two pianos, and various pieces for mixed instrumental ensembles (with or without narration). Recordings of several of his works are available on CDs, and scores and parts to many of his compositions are available at christopherkies.com.