Jan Swafford is an American composer and author. He earned his bachelor of arts magna cum laude from Harvard College and his DMA in composition from the Yale School of Music. His music has been widely played by ensembles, including the symphonies of St. Louis, Indianapolis and the Dutch Radio. He is the author of biographies of Ives, Brahms and Beethoven. His many honors include an NEA Composer Grant and the Deems Taylor Award for online writing on music, which he won for his essays in Slate. He is a longtime program writer and preconcert lecturer for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and has written notes and essays for the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit and Toronto. Among his liner notes for  recordings are those for DGG’s anniversary release of Beethoven’s nine symphonies by the Vienna Philharmonic.

Books by Jan Swafford

Mozart: The Reign of Love

by Jan Swafford - Biography, Music, Nonfiction

At the earliest ages, it was apparent that Wolfgang Mozart’s singular imagination was at work in every direction. He hated to be bored or idle, and through his life he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical. Whether in his rabidly obscene mode or not, Mozart was always hilarious. He went at every piece of his life, and perhaps most notably his social life, with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun. MOZART is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: a man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music.