Vivian Fine

About

Over the course of her nearly seven decade career as a composer, she wrote the chamber opera The Women in the Garden (1978), the dissonant piece The Great Wall of China (1946), the 1944 composition Concertante for Piano and Orchestra and well over one hundred other acclaimed musical works.

Before Fame

When she was only five years old, she received a piano scholarship to the Chicago Musical College. Eight years later, she began her career as a composer, and, by age sixteen, had debuted her work in both New York and Chicago.

Trivia

She was a founder and vice-president of the American Composers Alliance and is the subject of Heidi Von Gunden's 1999 biography The Music of Vivian Fine.

Family Life

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she later settled in Vermont, where she taught at Bennington College until her death in an automobile accident.

Associated With

Early in her career, she joined the Aaron Copland-led Young Composers Group.