William P. Perry is an American composer and television producer. Born in Elmira, New York in 1930, he attended Harvard University and studied with Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston and Randall Thompson. His music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony and the symphonic orchestras of Minnesota, Montreal and Hartford as well as the Vienna Symphony and other orchestras in Europe.
For twelve years, Per...
more
William P. Perry is an American composer and television producer. Born in Elmira, New York in 1930, he attended Harvard University and studied with Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston and Randall Thompson. His music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony and the symphonic orchestras of Minnesota, Montreal and Hartford as well as the Vienna Symphony and other orchestras in Europe.
For twelve years, Perry was the music director and composer-in-residence at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he composed and performed as a pianist more than three hundred scores for the Museum's silent film collection. His subsequent PBS television series, "The Silent Years" (1971,1975) presented by Orson Welles and Lillian Gish, won an Emmy Award. Perry is often credited with having played a major role in the revival of interest in classic silent films.
For three years (1976-1978) he produced a poetry series for PBS called "Anyone for Tennyson?"...
less
