John Carbon

Born in Chicago in 1951, John Carbon studied composition at Rice University and at University of California, Santa Barbara, where his teachers were Thea Musgrave, Paul Cooper, and Peter Racine Fricker. Carbon’s music continues to gain prominence due to a number of high-profile performances and recordings, and his output includes three full-length operas, Marie Laveau, Benjamin, and Disappearing Act, along with over 70 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, viola, piano, and double bass. Carbon’s work has been performed in New York at Merkin Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls at Lincoln Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Prague’s Smetana Hall.

Premieres of Carbon works have been presented by many major ensembles, including the New York Chamber Symphony, the Prague Radio Symphony, and the Alaria Chamber Ensemble of New York. Carbon’s music has been widely recorded, including releases on the MMC, Delos, Convivium, CGS, Zimbel, and Emeritus labels. Performers and ensembles who have recorded his music include clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, violinists Peter Zazofsky and Claire Chan, pianists Steven Graff and William Koseluk, double bassist Richard Frederickson, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, the New York Chamber Symphony, the Slovak Radio Symphony, the Prague Radio Symphony, the Concordia Chamber Ensemble, and Franklin & Marshall Opera Theater. From 1984–2020, Carbon was a member of the faculty of Franklin & Marshall College, where he was the Richard S. and Ann B. Barshinger Professor of Music (and upon his retirement was named Richard S. and Ann B. Barshinger Professor of Music Emeritus).