On Jan. 26, 1990, ‘Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra’ by Mel Powell—then a leading figure at CalArts premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, marking a major milestone in the composer’s extraordinary, genre-spanning career.

Born Melvin D. Epstein on Feb. 12, 1923, in the Bronx to Russian Jewish parents, Powell was a prodigy who began playing piano at age 4 and was performing professionally by 14.

In 1941, still a teenager, he adopted the surname “Powell” after joining the Benny Goodman Orchestra as a pianist and arranger. Drafted into the Army in 1943, he served with Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force Band through 1945.

After World War II, Powell moved to Hollywood, where he worked in film and animation, including “Tom and Jerry” shorts, and appeared as himself in “A Song Is Born” (1948) alongside jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey and Goodman. It was during this period that he met and married actress Martha Scott.

A diagnosis of muscular dystrophy eventually ended Powell’s life as a touring performer and confined him to a wheelchair for some time, prompting him to devote himself fully to composing and teaching.

Powell soon turned his focus to composition, studying at Yale with German-born composer Paul Hindemith and earning his degree in 1952. He taught at Queens College before returning to Yale in 1958, where he succeeded Hindemith as chair of the composition faculty and directed one of the nation’s earliest electronic music studios.

Throughout the 1960s, Powell explored experimental textures across electronic, orchestral and choral music, all while occasionally rejoining Goodman for recording sessions.

In the late 1960s, he was tapped as dean of the CalArts School of Music, helping shape the school’s bold, interdisciplinary identity. CalArts welcomed its first students in 1969, held initial classes in Burbank during the construction of the Valencia campus, and moved to the new campus in 1971.

Powell later served as provost from 1972 to 1976 and remained a central figure in the institution’s growth, recruiting innovative faculty, including sitar master Ravi Shankar.

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1987, Powell spent two years crafting “Duplicates,” weaving together a wide range of musical influences.

Following its 1990 premiere, Los Angeles Times critic John Henken described the work as “large in dimension and ambition,” noting its uncompromising atonal complexity.

Others were even more enthusiastic: without Powell’s knowledge, conductor André Previn submitted the piece for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in Music, which it won.

Powell continued teaching at CalArts and held the Roy E. Disney endowed chair in music composition until his death from liver cancer on April 24, 1998, at his Sherman Oaks home. He was survived by his wife, two daughters and a son, and is buried alongside his first wife, who died in 2003, in the Masonic Cemetery in Jamesport, Missouri.

Today, Powell’s legacy lives on through the Mel Powell Chair, one of four honorary endowed chairs at CalArts’ Herb Alpert School of Music.

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