Paul Creston

Paul Creston (1906-1985) was a self-taught Italian-American composer of the mid-20th century noted for his accessible tonal style in the American idiom and for the strong emphasis on rhythm in his works. Championed by prominent conductors such as Arturo Toscanini, Eugene Ormandy, and Leopold Stokowski, Creston wrote a large amount of orchestral music, including six symphonies and 15 concertos, but he also composed a respected body of chamber, choral, and vocal works, along with a set of 123 keyboard pieces entitled Rhythmicon. Creston was also the author of the music textbooks Principles of Rhythm (1964) and Rational Metric Notation (1977).