Brant, Henry Dreyfus (1913– )

Canadian-born US composer, flautist, and organist. He was a leading avant-gardist of the 1940s and 1950s. He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his piece Ice Field.

He was born in Montréal, Canada. A student of Aaron Copland, and George Antheil, he became increasingly interested, under the influence of Charles Ives in music for multiple ensembles separated spatially. He also taught at colleges including Columbia University, the Juilliard School, and Bennington College. His Antiphony I for five orchestral groups and five conductors pre-dated Stockhausen's Gruppen by four years.

Works ballet The Great American Goof (1946), Millenium I–IV for brass instruments (1950–64), Behold the Earth, Requiem Cantata (1951), Feuerwerk, for fireworks, speaker, and instruments (1961), Solomon's Gardens for seven voices, chorus, 24 handbells, and three instruments (1974), Antiphony I for five orchestral groups and five conductors (1953), Grand Universal Circus (1956), Violin Concerto with Lights (1961), Verticals Ascending for two separate groups (1968), Immortal Combat for two bands (1972), An American Requiem (1974), Homage to Ives for baritone and three orchestral groups (1975), Antiphonal Responses (1978), Horizontals Extending (1982); spatial works Meteor Farm (1982), Brant an de Amstel (1984), Northern Lights over the Twin Cities (1985), An Era Any Time of Year (1987), Ghost Nets (1988), and Prisons of the Mind, ‘Spatial Symphony’ (1990).