Greg Stepanich

Daniel Pinkham contributed beauty to Christmas

At this time of year in churches around the country, ambitious music directors and choirs tackle the Christmas Cantata of the American composer Daniel Pinkham.

It's got a fresh, spiky sound, and lots of tricky rhythms; it's a fine work, and always worth hearing.
Pinkham died last week at age 83 of leukemia, and so passes another American composer who contributed music of real, lasting value to his nation's store of music.

I remember interviewing him for a story more than a decade ago, and found him charming, energetic and funny. Besides telling me that royalties from the Christmas Cantata had pretty much paid for the house he occupied, he asked me who my composition teachers had been in Boston when I studied there for two years.

I told him, and he proceeded to follow that up with a devastatingly accurate imitation of one of my professors. It was hilarious, really, and it was so unexpected and so sharply done that it took me at least half a minute to stop laughing.

The other thing that struck me at the time was that I expected Pinkham to be much more fearsome as an interview subject simply because I'd had trouble getting his time changes down when playing his music. But he was precisely the opposite, and interviewing him briefly for my story was a real joy.

I think it's wonderful that a new piece of his was premiered at Harvard University the night before he died. He was composing right up to the end, and that's the definition of a person living a fulfilled work life.

I wish I'd had the chance to meet him in person, but reading the tributes that have rolled in on his Website and over at Sequenza21 shows that he was greatly beloved by a large number of people. Here's an obit from The Boston Globe; this Christmas we have a reason for sorrow at his passing, but with his music, we have much more reason to celebrate a life well-lived.