Composer John Carbon
Born in Chicago in 1951, John Carbon studied composition at Rice University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, where his teachers included Thea Musgrave, Paul Cooper, Emma Lou Diemer and Peter Racine Fricker. He is presently the Richard S. and Ann B. Barshinger Professor of Music at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His catalogue includes three operas, Marie Laveau, Benjamin, and Disappearing Act, along with many choral, orchestral, vocal, and chamber works. Carbon has a special flair for the virtuosity and drama needed for concertos, and has completed works in this genre for clarinet, violin, trumpet, piano, and most recently double bass.
His music has been heard at Merkin Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls at Lincoln Center, Boston's Symphony Hall, and Prague's Smetana Hall. Mr. Carbon’s work has also been performed in England, Argentina and Spain and broadcast in Australia, Indonesia and Japan. His works have been presented by the New York Chamber Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Czech Radio Orchestra, Slovak Radio Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Concordia and Seattle Symphony and have been conducted by Maron Alsop, Gerard Schwarz, George Manahan, Gerhardt Zimmermann, Robert Black, David Stock, Kirk Trevor and Vladmír Valék. His chamber music has been featured by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Essex Quartet, Trio Fedele and the Alaria Chamber Ensemble of New York. Soloists have included Richard Stoltzman, Peter Zazofsky, Claire Chan, Jeffrey Silberschlag, Stephen Balderston, William Koseluk and Doris Hall-Gulati.
Recordings of his music include his complete opera Benjamin, the symphony Inner Voices, his clarinet, piano and violin concertos and several chamber works on the MMC, VMM, Delos, CGS, and Moonbridge labels. In February 2012 Zimbel Records released a new recording of his piano music played by pianist Steven Graff.