Person

Anhalt, István

1919-2012

István Anhalt was born on April 12, 1919, in Budapest, Hungary.

He was a Hungarian Canadian composer and educator, one of the leading figures in avant-garde composition in Canada. He studied piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, graduating with exceptional marks in 1941. He continued his studies by attending classes from Turkish linguistics to Folklore at Pázmány University and attending a seminar by János Ferencsik for conductors. In 1942, during the Second World War, Anhalt was forced to enter a forced labour brigade for young Jewish men. He escaped from the brigade, disguised himself as a seminarian, and hid until the war ended. He then made his way to Paris, where he had access to music teachers and abundant artistic stimulation. In the late 1940s, he studied under Louis Fourestier, Nadia Boulanger and Soulima Stravinsky before emigrating to Canada in 1949 as a recipient of a Lady Davis Fellowship. Anhalt settled in Montreal, where he taught analysis and composition at McGill University at the Faculty of Music. He established the Theory and Composition Departments and served as its chairman. He also developed and directed the McGill University Electronic Music Studio (EMS). He continued composing using dodecaphony, electronic music, and extended vocal techniques. Many of his most significant compositions are for orchestra, but he contributed to all major genres, from solo instrumental works to opera. From the mid-1970s onwards, he began to use more traditional compositional techniques, from which he fashioned an original, distinctive, and evocative idiom. In 1971, he moved to Kingston, Ontario and became the head of Queen's University's Department of Music.

In 1952, he married Beate Frankenberg (1924–2019). He died on February 24, 2012, in Kingston, Ontario.