Henry Brant, 94; Daring, Prize-Winning Composer

Mr. Brant formalized his study of music theory under Leopold Mannes at what became the Juilliard School of Music in New York. His private teachers included George Antheil, who was pivotal in freeing Mr. Brant's mind from traditional uses of instruments. It was a success, and Mr. Brant's unorthodox compositions included kitchen utensils and tin whistles, the latter for a 1938 tribute to the Marx Brothers.

One of his later works, "Orbits" (1979), called for 80 trombones and an organ. Still another, "Kingdom Come" (1970), featured two orchestras, one on stage playing dissonant sounds, while a second in the balcony used buzzers, whistles and air compressors.

Mr. Brant worked in academia for much of his life and taught music at Bennington College in Vermont from 1957 to 1980.

He also contributed to the orchestration of several Depression Era documentaries ("The Plow That Broke the Plains," "The River" and "The City"), wrote incidental music on radio broadcasts in the 1940s and helped orchestrate music for Hollywood films, including "Cleopatra" (1963) and "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987).

He told the Los Angeles Times he found those commercial assignments liberating. "I've had advantages which few composers have had in the 20th century, because of the commercial work I've done," he said. "In films, all they said was 'our budget is such. You can have this much for music.' They don't tell you what the instruments are to be or what they shouldn't be."

Mr. Brant's most important early venture into full spatial sound was "Antiphony I" (1953), which was performed at Carnegie Hall and featured five parts of the orchestras positioned throughout the auditorium. Two years later, his cantata for orchestra and 100 voices, "December" (1955), became the first piece by an American to win the Prix Italia, a prestigious international competition sponsored by Italian radio and television.

He spent 60 years sporadically writing an orchestration textbook, "Textures and Timbres," scheduled for publication this year.

His first two marriages, to Maxine Picard and Patricia Gorman, ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 19 years, Kathy Wilkowski of Santa Barbara; three children from his second marriage, Piri Friedman of Portland, Ore., Joquin Ives Brant of Escazu, Costa Rica, and Linus Corragio of Manhattan, N.Y.; a brother; and four grandchildren.

Of Mr. Brant's major contemporaries, only composer Elliott Carter, born in 1908, survives. After winning the Pulitzer, Mr. Brant told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The main thing is for a composer to stick around as long as possible and keep working -- otherwise you miss things like this."