Glenn Buhr

Biography

Sample Works

Glenn Buhr( b. 1954, Winnipeg). Canadian composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, choral, and vocal works that have been performed throughout Canada and Europe and that appear on several recordings.

Dr. Buhr received his BMus in 1979 from the University of Manitoba, his MMus in 1981 from the University of British Columbia and his DMA in 1984 from the University of Michigan. His principal teachers included Casey Sokol, Lawrence Ritchey, William Benjamin, Stephen Chatman, Leslie Bassett, William Albright, and William Bolcom.

Dr. Buhr has received several awards, including the Performing Rights Organization Canada Prize (for Beren and Lúthien) and a prize in the CBC Young Composers Competition (for le rêve rêvient…). In addition, he has received the prestigious Italian Pro Loco Corciano Prize (for Epigrams) and First Prize in the American Harp Society Composers Competition (for Tanzmusik). More recently, winter poems won the Prairie Music Award for Outstanding Classical Recording of the Year for 2000 and compact discs featuring his works have earned him three Juno nominations.

He became well known in Canada as co-founder, with Bramwell Tovey, of the Winnipeg New Music Festival. He was the composer-in-residence with the orchestra and curator of the New Music Festival from 1990-96, when the orchestra created the position of Artist Laureate for him. Recently, he was music director of the St. Norbert Arts and Cultural Centre and artistic director of the Music in the Ruins festival in Manitoba and since 2002, he has been director of new music for the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra.

He has received several composition awards, including first prize in the prestigious Italian Pro Loco Corciano Competition for Epigrams, a work for wind orchestra. In 1998 he was named University Research Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, the first time that honour had been given to a creative artist. He has also received a large number of commissions from many important performers and ensembles including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Penderecki String Quartet, the Detroit Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, pianist Janina Fialkowska, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Children's Chorus. His music has been performed by such diverse ensembles as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, pianist Louis Lortie, soprano Tracy Dahl and many others.

In 1998, Dr. Buhr was named University Research Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, the first time that the honor was given to a creative artist, and he is now Professor of Composition there. In addition, he is active as a guest conductor, having conducted concerts with symphony orchestras in Calgary, Edmonton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg.

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