Alice Stuart Parker Pyle (December 16, 1925 – December 24, 2023), known professionally as Alice Parker, was an American composer, arranger, conductor and teacher.
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Early life and education
Parker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1925, to Gordon Parker, who worked in the hardwood business, and Mary Shumate Stuart, who founded and directed a plastics laminate company. She grew up in Boston and Winchester, Massachusetts.
After studying music theory with Mary Mason at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Parker attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1947 with a double major in organ and composition. She then spent a summer at Tanglewood, studying with the conductor Robert Shaw, with whom she went on to have a long and prolific association, and Julius Herford, before beginning a graduate program in choral conducting at the Juilliard School in New York City.