George Perle (born in 1916) was a distinguished composer and theorist. Discovering Alban Berg's music as an undergraduate at DePaul University greatly influenced his musical development, as did his studies in the 1940s with Ernst Krenek. His theoretical writings on serial music, in particular SERIAL COMPOSITION AND ATONALITY (1962), as well as his studies of Berg's music garnered much respect from his academic colleagues. His music found wider appreciation when he won the Pulitzer Prize for his WIND QUINTET NO. 4 and then a MacArthur Foundation grant in 1986. Throughout his career, he taught at many institutions and was professor emeritus at the City University of New York. Perle died in 2009 at the age of 93.
