Gerald Humel

Gerald Humel (born November 7, 1931 in Cleveland, Ohio, died May 13, 2005 in Berlin) was an American composer of Czech origin. His earliest important piece of music, "Moods Americana," was written at the age of 17 while he was still a high school student in Cleveland. It was a top prize winner in the Scholastic Creative Music Awards. One of only two compositions given immediate radio network airplay by the Columbia Broadcasting System, it was performed on April 26, 1949 by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, with Bernard Herrmann directing. In 1958, he won the internationally prestigious BMI Student Composer Award competition. He was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Prize in 1965. In 1960, Humel received a Fulbright fellowship that enabled him to study composition with Boris Blacher in Berlin. He stayed, spending the rest of his compositional life in Berlin. In 1965 he founded the group "Neue Musik Berlin" together with his friends and colleagues Karlheinz Wahren, Wilhelm Dieter Siebert, Roland Pfrengle and Jolyon Brettingham-Smith. From 1980 to 1993 he was a member of the "Akademie der Künste, Berlin (West)" in the music section. From 1993 until his death, he was a member of the "Akademie der Künste, Berlin", which came out of the Academy of Arts, Berlin (West) and the "German Academy of Arts Berlin (East)". Humel was buried in the Stubenrauchstraße cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg.