Gregory Short

Gregory Short

Gregory Norman Short (August 14, 1938-April 1, 1999) was an American composer and pianist. Gregory Short was one of the first pianists to offer entire programs of American and Northwest music to audiences in Seattle, WA and through his The American Composer series on Public Broadcasting Service. He attended the Juilliard School of Music, the University of Washington, and the University of Oregon where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition and Theory. Short’s compositions have been performed in Canada, Germany, and the United States.

A composer who produced more than 300 works, much of Short's inspiration came from Northwest Native American traditional culture. "I felt there a genuine spirituality. That nature and man are the same. And between the real world and the spirit world, there is no division." He completed a four-part cycle of compositions about the dynamics of the mountains and original people in the Northwest. In addition to Native American cultural traditions, he found inspirational themes in the Bible, novels of J. R. R. Tolkien, essays of Khalil Gibran, and pivotal social changes such as the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Many of his compositions drew inspiration from the people and environment of state of Washington, where he was an active composer and pianist as a long-time resident on Puget Sound. Short was named the 1989 Washington State Centennial Artist.

With a long career as a pianist, "I wanted to put together the life I wanted to live. (Writing music) is kind of like you are in trance. I know that I put in a lot of time." He tried to write each day from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., and most days he was back at his worktable by 6 p.m. for another two or three hours of composition. As with Charles Ives, whose music manuscripts Short found at the Juilliard library, he sought to express the entire universe in music. In the years before his death, Short was composing and arranging for piano and orchestra with the aid of his computer. Moreover, he was working on a film score and a book.