Akmal Parwez
*25 December 1948
Works by Akmal Parwez
Biography
Composer-vocalist Akmal Parwez was born into a musical and artistic family in Punjab, Pakistan. (His father was the renowned poet, music scholar and journalist, Afzal Parwez.) He studied electronics in Tokyo on a Japanese government scholarship, receiving B.E. and M.E. degrees. However, after a brief engineering career, and encouraged by his composition teachers Yasushi Akutagawa and Klaus Pringsheim, he felt compelled to devote his life to composing, singing and teaching music. He came to the U.S. to study voice with Joseph Klein, and later studied composition with Florence Jolley, Leo Kraft, Samuel Adler, Warren Benson and Joseph Schwantner. He received an M.A. in Composition from Queens College and a Ph.D. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music. Parwez is a bass-baritone soloist, choral conductor and voice teacher who often performs his own works.
About the music
His music is a romantic and uniquely dynamic synthesis of Eastern melodic and rhythmic motifs and Western compositional techniques of harmony, counterpoint and orchestration.