Kent Holliday: piano, composition

Kent Holliday studied composition with Paul Fetler and Dominick Argento at the University of Minnesota, where he received his Ph.D. in music theory-composition in 1968. He subsequently did postgraduate work in Paris, France, and at Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire. In 1969 he worked with Pietro Grossi on computer music in the Studio di Fonologia S2FM in Florence, Italy, and in 1988 studied composition on research-leave with Witold Szalonek of the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin, Germany.

Dr. Holliday was the winner of the Virginia Music Teachers Association Composition Competition in 1983, 1996, and 1999. His Four Evocations won first place in the New Music Delaware Composition Competition in 1996. He taught music composition, theory, history, piano, and selected courses in the humanities at Virginia Tech since 1974. His book, Reproducing Pianos Past and Present, was published by Mellen Press in1989.

More recently, Dr. Holliday has also received the ASCAPLUS award for the SCI recording of his work Tango Exótico, which may be heard below:

“Tango Exótico”
from
Sonance - New Music for Piano
Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi