Armer, Elinor

American composer and pianist. She studied composition at Mills College (BA 1961),the University of California, Berkeley (1966-8), and California State University, San Francisco (MA 1972). Her teachers include Darius Milhaud and Leon Kirchner (composition), and Alexander Libermann (piano). In 1976 she was appointed to teach at San Francisco Conservatory of Music where she is head of the composition department.

Biography

Elinor Armer (b. Oakland, CA, 6 Oct. 1939). American composer and pianist. She studied composition at Mills College (BA 1961), the University of California, Berkeley (1966-8) and California State University, San Francisco (MA 1972). Her teachers included Darius Milhaud and Leon Kirchner (composition), and Alexander Libermann (piano). In 1976 she was appointed to teach at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is head of the composition department. Writing with a rich harmonic vocabulary and colorful scoring, Armer has developed an individualistic style. Her compositions are often programmatic or include text; theatrical elements bring pieces to life. She is collaborating with the author Ursula K. Le Guin on an imaginative series entitled Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts about an archipelago of islands each of which experiences music in an unusual manner, for example as food, sexual attractant or geologic phenomena. [From The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers].