Douglas Knehans

Douglas Knehans is an American-Australian composer whose orchestral writing The New Yorker has praised for “a primitive force and melodic insistence that recall Stravinsky.” Gramophone calls him “a composer of considerable fluency and instrumental imagination,” and Fanfare has described his music as “scored with a masterly hand.”

His works have been performed and recorded worldwide, with highlights including Unfinished Earth: Symphony No. 3, the flute concerto Tempest (Gareth Davies, Brno Philharmonic), Dark City: Cello Concerto No. 2 (Zuill Bailey, Royal Scottish National Orchestra), and Ripple: Symphony No. 1 (National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine). His first opera, The Ascension of Robert Flau, premiered with Opera Australia; his second, Backwards from Winter, premiered at NY Operafest, its live recording praised as “an astonishingly visceral Winterreise for the 21stcentury.”

Born in St. Louis and raised from age fourteen in Australia, Knehans studied with Thea Musgrave and Jacob Druckman, the latter at Yale. He is Norman Dinerstein Professor of Composition Scholar at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and founder of ABLAZE Records, which has released over ninety albums. His works are published exclusively by Donemus.