American Composer Diane Thome has Died, Aged 82

Thome was the first woman to receive a composition Ph.D. from Princeton University

The American electro-acoustic composer and professor Diane Thome has passed away at the age of 82.

Thome first began studying composition at age twelve, and her first teacher, Robert Strassburg, proved influential. She went on to Eastman School of Music, where she received degrees in both composition and piano performance. After a stint in Pennsylvania she became the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University.

Thome's composition teachers included key figures of the avant-garde, including Milton Babbitt, Roy Harris, Alexander Boscovich, and Darius Milhaud.

Over the course of Thome's life, her works received performances in Europe, China, Australia, Israel, Canada, and the United States. She was invited to be composer-in-residence at numerous institutions, including at the University of Sussex. Bennington College, and the University of Cincinnati. She also spent time as a guest of the Ecole Nationale Claude Debussy, and during this time was featured on French radio.

Thome received many honors for her work, including Washington Composer of the Year (1994), Solomon Katz Distinguished Professor in the Humanities (1995–1996), and an International Computer Music Conference Commission (1998).

Among her better-known works are Night Passage, an environmental theatre-piece; Angels, a virtual-reality artwork for computer; and Unseen Buds, for mixed choir and computer-realized sound.

Her music was strongly electro-acoustic in style, and was recorded on labels such as CRI, Crystal Records, Capstone, Leonarda, and Centaur. Among these recordings were two monographic discs, Palaces of Memory and Bright Air/Brilliant Fire.

You can read about Thome's life and work in much greater detail in her memoir, Palaces of Memory, which was published in 2016.

Our condolences to Thome's family, friends, and colleagues.