Life and career
Rands was born on 2 March 1934. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan.
Rands held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by tenor Paul Sperry and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he was Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music.
Rands received many awards for his work, and was elected and inducted into The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004. From 1989 to 1995 he was composer-in-residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Rands's music is widely recorded. The recording of his Canti D'Amor by the men's vocal ensemble Chanticleer won a Grammy Award in 2000. Rands was married to American composer Augusta Read Thomas.
Rands died in Chicago on 4 March 2026.
