George Rochberg (1918-2005) composed six symphonies, three concertos, seven string quartets, and dozens of chamber and solo works over the course of a career spanning six decades. After establishing himself as a modernist composer, he grew dissatisfied with the expressive limitations of serial composition. Through explorations in his music and his writings, he arrived at a more inclusive compositional style that embraced both the old and the new, yielding groundbreaking works such as Music for the Magic Theater, the String Quartet no. 3, and the Concord Quartets. The revised edition of his collected writings on music, The Aesthetics of Survival, was the recipient of an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 2006.

Gene Rochberg met George in 1938 while both were students at what is now Montclair State University. They married in 1941. After they moved to Philadelphia, Gene studied at the Hedgerow Theatre School and the Barnes Foundation and was actively involved in theater and the other arts. She collaborated with her husband on a number of works, including the monodrama Phaedre and the opera The Confidence Man.

Richard Griscom is the head of the Otto E. Albrecht Music Library at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the coauthor of The Recorder: A Research and Information Guide and former editor of the quarterly journal of the Music Library Association, Notes.