Girard Kratz was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA, a coal town along the Susquehanna River at the base of the Pocono Mountains in the beautiful Wyoming Valley. He has earned degrees from Wilkes, Bowling Green State, and Temple Universities where his interests included writing for chamber ensembles and electronic music. As President of BGSU’s Student Composer Organization, Præcepta, Kratz facilitated numerous performances, both on and off campus, of student-composed pieces and hosted guest composer presentations and performances. He used this knowledge to help create Temple University’s first Student Composer Organization, now called Contemplum.

Dr. Kratz has taught at BGSU, Owens Community College, Montgomery County Community College, and Temple University. He also served on the administration of Temple’s Boyer College of Music’s non-credit Preparatory Division and is an advocate for young composers across the Philadelphia region.

Kratz has been commissioned by The Assembly Saxophone Quartet, Matt Younglove, The Longfellow Trio (now Ghostchild), and Duo Montagnard. His pieces are often influenced by literature, explore his anti-war sentiments and love of nature, or whimsically interpret non-musical elements of life, history and philosophy. His music has been performed throughout the United States and has been called “beguiling” and “pregnant with meaning” by the Philadelphia Inquirer. His piece for choir with harp and vibraphone, There Will Come Soft Rains, was likened to “sweet spring in time of dissonant war” by Sequenza21 and was recognized by The Carlton Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace.

He shares his musical explorations with his wife and two children and has been invited to stay in his residence by three spoiled house cats.