Tobias Picker

Picker was born in New York City on July 18, 1954, the son of painter and fashion designer Henriette Simon Picker and news-writer Julian Picker, and the cousin of film executive David V. Picker, businessman Harvey Picker, former CEO of The American Film Institute Jean Picker Firstenberg, art-patron Stanley Picker,[5] producer Jimmy Picker,[6] and economist Kenneth Rogoff. At the age of eight, he began composing and studying the piano:

I was raised by my teachers on a diet of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schuman, and eventually Brahms, my favorite. There was always some "modern" music thrown in…. With the discovery of each new composer a new world opened up for me. It wasn't really until I discovered the music of Charles Wuorinen with whom I began studying at eighteen that I finally was exposed to Carter (with whom I later studied) and Boulez and Stravinsky and Stefan Wolpe.[7]

Picker started composing in 1962, and, that same year, began corresponding with composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who encouraged his studies. Three years later, Picker was taken into the preparatory division of the Juilliard School of Music for instruction in piano and theory. At the age of eighteen, Picker was an improvising pianist for the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance,[8] and, that same year, he enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Charles Wuorinen. He studied voice with Cynthia Hoffmann at the Manhattan School of Music. After graduating in 1976, he returned to the Juilliard School of Music to take instruction in composition from Elliott Carter and, afterwards, pursued graduate studies at Princeton University with Milton Babbitt.[8]

In 1976, at the age of twenty-two, Picker was commissioned to compose "Sextet No. 3" by Speculum Musicae, which premiered at Alice Tully Hall.[9] Soon after, in 1978, the premier of "Rhapsody for Violin and Piano" led New Yorker critic Andrew Porter to deem Picker "a genuine creator with a fertile, unforced vein of invention."[10] By the age of thirty, Picker had been recognized with numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Joseph H. Bearns Prize (Columbia University), a Charles Ives Scholarship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.[11]

Picker's "Symphony No. 1" premiered at the San Francisco Symphony in 1983, and, that same year, Picker was the soloist in his "Piano Concerto No. 2: Keys to the City," commissioned by the city of the New York for the Brooklyn Bridge Centennial.[12] Later that year, Picker's "The Encantadas" was premiered by the Albany Symphony Orchestra. In 1985, Picker was appointed the first composer-in-residence of the Houston Symphony[13] where he introduced his most popular orchestral work, Old and Lost Rivers, as well as two symphonies and other concerted works. In 1992, Picker was awarded the Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Music.[11]

Tobias Picker with librettist Gene Scheer

In 1993, Picker began composing his first opera, Emmeline, commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera, with a libretto by J.D. McClatchy; Emmeline premiered in 1996.[14][15] In 1998, two years after the debut of Emmeline, Picker's second opera, Fantastic Mr. Fox premiered at the Los Angeles Opera.[16] Fantastic Mr. Fox was recorded by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera in 2019 and released on Albany Records; this album won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.[17][18][19] A consortium of The Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, and Opéra de Montréal commissioned Picker's third opera, Thérèse Raquin, which debuted in 2001.[20] In 2005, The Metropolitan Opera debuted Picker's fourth opera, An American Tragedy, based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser; a revised version was premiered at The Glimmerglass Festival in 2014.[21] In 2010, Picker composed a ballet, Awakenings, for the Rambert Dance Company, inspired by the work of Oliver Sacks.[22][23] That same year, he co-founded Opera San Antonio, where he served as artistic director from 2010 to 2015.[24] In 2012, Picker was elected to a lifetime membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[25] Picker's fifth opera, Dolores Claiborne, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, premiered at the San Francisco Opera in September 2013; in 2019, it was produced by the Boston University Opera Institute, and recorded for Albany Records.[26][27] In 2015, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis mounted a new production of Emmeline, which garnered extremely positive reviews.[28][29][30] Continuing their relationship, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, commissioned Picker's sixth opera, Awakenings, also based on Awakenings by Oliver Sacks, which was scheduled to be premiered in 2020, but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[31] Picker was appointed artistic director of Tulsa Opera in 2016.[32] He is featured in James Kicklighter's documentary film, The Sound of Identity, profiling Picker's historic choice to hire Lucia Lucas as the first Transgender opera singer to have a leading role on the American stage.[33][34][35][36][37][38]

Picker's symphonic music, including the tone poem Old and Lost Rivers, has been performed by major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, The Munich Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. His piano concerto Keys to the City (written for the Centenary of the Brooklyn Bridge) is recorded on Chandos with his cello concerto and the orchestral work And Suddenly It's Evening.[39] Following this release, BBC Music Magazine proclaimed Picker's recent music "one of the glories of the current musical scene."[40]

The Encantadas (for narrator and orchestra) features texts drawn from Herman Melville's descriptions of the Galápagos Islands. It was recorded on Virgin Classics by the Houston Symphony Orchestra with narration by Sir John Gielgud.[11]

Other works include Tres sonetos de amor, settings of Neruda love poems in versions for baritone and orchestra, and voice and piano; and The Blue Hula, a work for chamber ensemble. Picker's complete orchestral catalogue includes three symphonies, four piano concertos and concertos for violin, viola, cello and oboe.[41]

Picker has also composed numerous chamber works. In 2009, the American String Quartet commissioned and premiered his String Quartet No. 2 at Merkin Concert Hall in New York.[42] In that same year, the pianist Ursula Oppens premiered Picker's Four Etudes for Ursula and Three Nocturnes for Ursula at Baisly Powell Elebash Recital Hall, also in New York.[43] In 2011, Picker was featured in a Miller Theatre Composer Portrait Concert, featuring the Signal Ensemble, Sarah Rothenberg, and the Brentano String Quartet, who premiered his Piano Quintet "Live Oaks".[44]

• Emmeline (1996): The Santa Fe Opera commissioned and produced the world premiere of Picker's first opera, which was subsequently broadcast nationally on the PBS Great Performances series. The premiere recording was released on CD by Albany Records.[45]
• Fantastic Mr. Fox (1998): His second opera was an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book, commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Opera. Picker has written two more versions of this work: a version for Chamber Ensemble of seven instruments was premiered by Opera Holland Park in 2010.[46] A version with reduced orchestration was written for the English Touring Opera, also in 2010.[47] The Boston Modern Orchestra Project's 2019 recording won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.[48]
• Thérèse Raquin (1999/2000): Picker's third opera (libretto by Gene Scheer) was commissioned by a consortium of companies, including The Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, and the Opéra de Montréal. Picker received a new commission from Opera Theatre Europe for a reduced-scale version of Thérèse Raquin, which was performed in March 2006 at the Linbury Studio of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.[49] The premiere performance was recorded and released by Chandos in 2001.[50]
• An American Tragedy (2005/2006):[51] Based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser, with a libretto by Gene Scheer, Picker's fourth opera was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.[52] The world premiere took place on December 2, 2005 and featured Patricia Racette, Nathan Gunn, Susan Graham, and Dolora Zajick in principal roles. The production was directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by James Conlon.[53]
• Dolores Claiborne (2013): The San Francisco Opera premiered a Picker's fifth opera with a libretto by J.D. McClatchy, based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, in 2013.[54]
• Awakenings (2020): Picker's sixth opera, based on Awakenings by Oliver Sacks, with a libretto by Aryeh Lev Stollman, was commissioned by The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis . Its premiere has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[31]

Picker and Oliver Sacks

Picker composed his first ballet, Awakenings (2010), inspired by Awakenings his long-time friend, Oliver Sacks,[55] and commissioned by the Rambert Dance Company. The piece was premiered by Rambert in Salford, UK in September 2010. Rambert toured the work around the UK with over 80 performances in the 2010–11 season.[56]