Richard Brodhead

Richard Brodhead was born in 1947 in Philadelphia, where he received his early musical training and heard his first compositions performed. He earned his Bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, as a Scholar of the House in music composition at Yale University, where he studied with Lawrence Moss and Bulent Arel, and his Master’s degree in composition at the University of Pennsylvania, where his principal teacher was Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Richard Wernick.

Richard Brodhead’s music has been praised as “wondrously sculpted and paced…. Brodhead never forgets the emotion” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and as “ an extended moment of intense contemplation, where meditative calm and emotional anguish merge” (CRI Records). His compositions include works for symphony orchestra; music for dance; solo works for piano, cello, flute, recorder, guitar, and theorbo; vocal and choral music; and chamber music for a variety of ensembles.

His music been presented by Network for New Music, Chamber Music Now!, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Hartt School of Music, the Temple/Peregrine Arts Atelier Concerts funded by the Philadelphia Music Project, New Sounds Live! at Lincoln Center’s Merkin Hall, the Delaware Valley Philharmonic Orchestra, and Temple University. It has been performed by such outstanding artists as cellist Scott Kluksdahl (who recorded Lament for the CRI label), the Lions Gate Trio, the Momenta Quartet, pianist Charles Abramovic, guitarist Allen Krantz, and lutenist Richard Stone, and has been heard on National Public Radio and on Philadelphia-area broadcasts. Richard Brodhead has taught theory and composition at the University of Pennsylvania, Moravian College, Haverford College, The New School of Music, and since 1986 at Temple University, where he received a Lindback Award for distinguished teaching in 2012 and the Music and Dance Teaching Academy Award in 2009. Two of his recent composition students — Mena Hanna and William Dougherty — have been awarded Marshall Scholarships for graduate study in the UK. The Marshall Scholarship, given by the British government, is one of the most prestigious and competitive awards given to US students.

From 1982 to 1986, Richard Brodhead served as Dean of the New School of Music, and as Acting President in 1986 played a principal role in formulating the merger of the New School with Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance.