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John Holland Thow was an American music composer. Thow produced an extensive and diverse body of work comprising solo, chamber, vocal, choral, operatic and orchestral repertoire.
Born in Los Angeles in 1949, Thow grew up in Ventura, California. As a child he studied flute and piano, and later studied composition with Adolph Weiss, a pupil of Schoenberg’s, and conductor Frank Salazar. At University of Southern California he pursued his Bachelor of Music, studying composition with Ingolf Dahl. He continued his studies at Harvard with Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner, where he received his Ph.D. in composition in 1977.
Thow received a Fulbright Fellowship, which allowed him to travel to Rome for the first time in 1973 to study composition with Luciano Berio, who would become an important mentor and influence. Thow later returned to Italy as a recipient of the prestigious Rome Prize. During that time he also studied with Luigi Dallapiccola and Franco Donatoni.
After teaching at Boston University, Thow joined the University of California, Berkeley faculty in 1981, specializing in composition, orchestration, counterpoint, theory, in addition to teaching courses on American and European music of the 20th century. Some of his composition students include Keeril Makan, Dwight Banks, Richard Dudas, Yiorgos Vassilandonakis, Hubert Ho, and Dmitri Tymoczko.
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