A "Recommendation" of
CHRISTOPHER FULKERSON
by Elliott Carter

This photograph of Elliott Carter and CF was taken in Mr. Carter's home in New York in February 2001.

Our greatest living composer, Elliott Carter, and I were introduced at the Cabrillo Festival by the then American, now German music critic Paul Moor. Mr. Carter has not written a letter for me to post on the web, but he has supported me with letters of recommendation, so I think it plausible to say that he supports my music, and since everybody knows the high esteem in which I hold his music, I hope it will be understood why I offer the indirect documentation below. Mr. Carter is in fact one of the few composers to help me who didn't have to because he was a teacher of mine; the work I have done with him was not a part of any institutional curriculum, but something he most kindly volunteered. Significantly, Carter recommended me for an emergency grant when I once almost lost my life in a hit-and-run accident as a result of being hit by the driver of a pickup truck while I was a pedestrian on a bicycle, and couldn't work for several weeks due to a skull fracture. However, I was told by the private granting agency, to which Mr. Carter made appeal on my behalf, that I had to accept the grant on the condition that I did not list them in my CV, and I assume that means it should not be named here.

When I applied for a job that I didn't get at DePaul University, for which Mr. Carter supported my application, he mailed me Dean Frederick Miller's reply to him; I hope it seems reasonable to say that Mr. Carter seems to have wanted to make sure I understood that it wasn't because he didn't support me that I didn't get the job. Here is Dean Miller's letter, which Elliott Carter sent to me, and, for good measure, the envelope he sent it in.

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