Andrew Imbrie

Andrew Welsh Imbrie (April 6, 1921 – December 5, 2007) was an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist.

Imbrie was born in New York City and began his musical training as a pianist when he was 4.

[1] In 1937, he went to Paris to study composition briefly with Nadia Boulanger and piano with Robert Casadesus.

[1] He returned to the United States the next year to attend Princeton University where he studied with Roger Sessions, receiving his undergraduate degree in 1942.

[2] His notable students include Larry Austin, Tamar Diesendruck, Richard Festinger, Alden Jenks, Frank La Rocca, Neil Rolnick, Valerie Samson, Allen Shearer, Laura Schwendinger, Nils Frykdahl, Kurt Rohde, Hi Kyung Kim, Leslie Wildman and Carolyn Yarnell.

[3] Imbrie preferred harmony that was non-triadic,[3] or if triadic, non-functional, and a tightly organized, often atonal, contrapuntal texture with attention to careful motivic development; he avoided the serial techniques that dominated art music composition after the Second World War.

[citation needed] Imbrie was also attentive to melodic line and shape to make a free atonal language accessible.