Bio compiled from the Yelton Rhodes Music website and http://www.public.asu.edu/~glennh/vcs/chihara.html
Birth name: Paul Seiko Chihara. Born in Seattle, Washington in 1938. Received a D.M.A. from Cornell University in 1965 where he was a student of Robert Palmer. Also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Ernst Pepping in Berlin, and with Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood. With Toru Takemitsu, Chihara was composer-in-residence at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont in 1971. He is currently (as of 2002) on the faculty at UCLA and was also the first composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Neville Marriner, Conductor.
His concert works have been performed in most major cities and arts centers in the U.S. and Europe. Commissions and awards include those from The Lili Boulanger Memorial Award, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Fellowship, the Aaron Copland Fund, and National Endowment for the Arts, as well as from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Composer-in-residence at the San Francisco Ballet from 1973-1986. Works composed for the San Francisco Ballet included Shin-ju (based on the "lovers' suicide" plays by the great Japanese dramatist Chikamatsu) and the first full-length American ballet, The Tempest.
Mr. Chihara has also composed scores for over 90 motion pictures and television series. Directors of films he has scored include Sidney Lumet, Louis Malle, Michael Ritchie, and Arthur Penn. Film titles include Prince of the City, The Morning After, and Crossing Delancey. His television work includes music for China Beach, Noble House, Brave New World, and 100 Centre Street. Also served as music supervisor at Buena Vista Pictures (Walt Disney Co.). In the New York musical theater world, he served as musical consultant and arranger for Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, and was the composer for James Clavell's Shogun, the Musical.
Recordings of his works appear on the following labels: BMG Records, Reference Recordings, CRI, Music and Art, Vox Candide, New World Records, and The Louisville Orchestra First Editions Records.
