Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands (born Sheffield, England, 2 March 1934) is a composer of contemporary classical music.

Rands studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy.

He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and York University before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus. His notable students include Beth Denisch, Paul Dresher, Bun-Ching Lam, Michael Daugherty, Jing Jing Luo, Sidney Corbett, Daron Hagen, Marc Mellits, Vic Hoyland, Dominic Muldowney, Roger Marsh and Robert Scott Thompson.

Rands has received many awards for his work, and was elected and inducted into The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004. From 1989 to 1995 he was composer-in-residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Rands's music is widely recorded. The recording of his Canti D'Amor by the men's vocal ensemble Chanticleer won a Grammy Award in 2000.

Rands is married to American composer Augusta Read Thomas.