Alan Chapman

speaker

ALAN CHAPMAN is heard weekdays on Classical KUSC (91.5 FM). He also produces and hosts “Modern Times” on Saturday nights and “A Musical Offering,” a program of Baroque music Sunday mornings. He was a longtime Professor of Music at Occidental College and served as a Visiting Professor at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. In recent years he has been a member of the music theory faculty of the Colburn Conservatory. Well known as a pre-concert lecturer, he has been a regular speaker on the Upbeat Live series since its inception in 1984. He also works closely with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Pacific Symphony, and has been heard globally as programmer and host of the inflight classical channels on United and Delta Airlines.

After receiving his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he earned a Ph.D. in music theory from Yale University. His analytical work has appeared in The Journal of Music Theory, and he is a contributor to A New Orpheus: Essays on Kurt Weill (Yale University Press, 1986), winner of the 1987 Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing on music.

Dr. Chapman is also active as a composer-lyricist and pianist. His songs, which have been performed and recorded by Andrea Marcovicci, Amanda McBroom, and many other artists throughout the United States and in England, have been honored by ASCAP, the Johnny Mercer Foundation, and the Manhattan Association of Cabarets. His children’s opera Les Moose: The Operatic Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, commissioned by Los Angeles Opera, was premiered in 15 public schools in 1997. Peter and Mr. Wolf, a work chronicling the tribulations of an eighth-grader in search of a science project, was commissioned by Chamber Music Palisades and premiered in 2008 with Chapman as narrator.

He frequently appears with his wife, soprano Karen Benjamin, in evenings of his original songs as well as concerts dedicated to preserving the American Songbook. They have performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, New York’s Town Hall, the Los Angeles Music Center, Pepperdine University, Ford Amphitheatre, Broad Stage, Dallas Museum of Art, and many other venues across the United States. Their CD, Que Será, Será: The Songs of Livingston and Evans, features the late Ray Evans telling the stories behind such beloved songs as “Mona Lisa” and “Silver Bells.”