Claudio Spies

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Claudio Spies (March 26, 1925 – April 2, 2020) was a Chilean‑American composer and teacher. He was born in Santiago, Chile, to German Jewish parents and finished school there in 1941.

Early in his career he was mentored by Erich Kleiber and Fritz Busch. In 1942 he moved to the United States to study music at the New England Conservatory and the Longy School of Music, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger and, after she left for California, with Harold Shapero. He entered Harvard College in 1947.

At Harvard he studied with Irving Fine and Otto Gombosi and wrote a dissertation on form in Stravinsky’s symphonies and concertos. He graduated in 1950 and received the John K. Paine Traveling Fellowship, which took him to Paris for a year of composing. He returned to Harvard and earned an MA in composition in 1954.

Spies taught music and composition at many institutions. He also taught about composers’ manuscripts, using facsimile editions and visits to manuscript collections such as the Morgan Library. He worked closely with Stravinsky, attending rehearsals and performances and helping bring the premiere of Requiem Canticles to Princeton in 1966. In Harvard Summer School in 1968 he conducted early versions of Stravinsky’s Les Noces and also conducted works by Schoenberg and Webern. He wrote articles about Stravinsky for Perspectives of New Music.

Spies married Emmi-Vera Tobias in 1953, and they had five children: Caterina, Michael, Tatiana, Leah, and Susanna. They divorced in 1985. He later moved to California and died on April 2, 2020, in Sonoma, at the age of 95.