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DR. MONTE KEENE PISHNY-FLOYD was born in Oklahoma City in 1941. At six, he wrote his first composition. He attended Oklahoma City elementary and secondary schools, Oklahoma City University (B.Mus.,1964), University of Oklahoma (M.Mus., 1965) and Eastman School of Music (Ph.D. in composition, 1972).
He studied composition with Bernard Rogers, David Diamond, Burrill Phillips, Ray Luke, among others, and piano with Eugene List. Dr. Pishny-Floyd joined the Faculty of St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana in 1968, and in 1971 came to the University of Saskatchewan. He is now a full professor and Head of Composition. Dr. Pishny-Floyd is married and has four daughters, all musical. His wife Annette (M.A. Eastman, 1970) is a pianist and a conductor, and she both copies and performs his music.
His music has been performed throughout North America, in Europe, Israel, and South America and has been recorded, broadcast nationally on CBC, and published. In addition to composing prolifically for most media, Dr. Pishny-Floyd is a published scholar and poet who has written papers on a variety of topics and created a large body of poetry. He generally writes his own librettos and texts.
His output includes everything from simple, short pieces to long and involved compositions full of complex counterpoint. Much of his music is serial, but in a way that extends functional tonality and is deliberately eclectic. His consistently dissonant idiom, influenced by Ives, Berg, Carter, Bartók, and Hindemith features elaborate contrapuntal structures manifesting a lineage extending from Perotin to Machaut, Josquin, J.S. Bach and Brahms, through the above-named 20th century composers, and also through the direct influence of his teacher David Diamond, to himself. His music at times manifests a Middle Eastern mysticism profoundly influenced by Judaism, with overtones of Indic traditions. In this respect, characterized by additive/diminutive series, melismatic writing, and colouristic chord voicing (spacing), Messiaen's influence is felt. In addition, all the types of music one hears in North America, especially jazz and blues, but also rock, country and western, bluegrass, the music of native peoples and even gospel music have left a subtle imprint on his style.
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