Brief Biography of Prof. Christoper Kies

Professor Christopher Kies, originally from the Washington, D.C., area, has been a member of the Music Department faculty since 1979. His areas of teaching include piano, theory, and composition. Since 1982, he has been a piano instructor at the Summer Youth Music School at U.N.H., a two-week music camp for high school students. His doctorate and masters degree are in composition from Brandeis University, and his undergraduate degrees are in piano and composition from the New England Conservatory. From 1971 to 1979 he was a founding member and pianist for COLLAGE, a contemporary chamber ensemble in Boston. In 1975-76, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study composition in Cologne, Germany. His piano studies were with Ylda Novik, Theodore Lettvin, and Russell Sherman, and composition with Donald Martino, Martin Boykan, and Arthur Berger. As a composer, he has twice been awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship (1988 and 2001) by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. As a twentieth-century music enthusiast, Dr. Kies has given numerous single-composer recitals featuring works by Igor Stravinsky, Charles Ives, John Cage, Arthur Berger, Francis Poulenc, William Bolcom, and Scott Joplin. He has long been a major fan of ragtime music and has performed ragtime piano music for several audiences in the seacoast area including seven consecutive years, 1994-2000, at First Night in Portsmouth, N.H. As a piano duo, Christopher Kies and Arlene Kies have performed Le Sacre du Printemps and Petrouchka by Stravinsky, Concerto in E Flat for two pianos by Mozart, and they have given world premiere performances of works for piano four-hands and two pianos by Timothy V. Clark, Joel Suben, and Arthur Berger for the Guild of Composers in New York City, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, and the Washington Square Chamber Series at N.Y.U. Dr. Kies' compositions include three ballets, music for solo piano and two pianos, works for mixed chorus, treble chorus, and children's chorus, and numerous arrangements and original works for a variety of instrumental ensembles. Recent premieres include: Le Tombeau de Saint-Saens for Brass Quintet and Narrator, In-Two-itive Dances for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano, and The Amazing Bone for Trombone, Piano, and Narrator. Prof. Kies's email address is ckies@cisunix.unh.edu.