|
Robert Miller (pianist)
Robert Miller (December 5, 1930 – November 30, 1981) was an American pianist and attorney. Life Miller was born in New York City and grew up in Mount Vernon. His early musical studies were with Mathilde McKinney and Abbey Simon, after which he studied at Princeton University where he graduated in 1952, magna cum laude in music, with a senior thesis on Beethoven's ''Diabelli Variations''. After serving in Korea with the U. S. Army for two years, he decided that the music he preferred to play would never lead to success with critics or to public fame in a world which he saw as one of musical museums, public salons and performing circuses. Consequently, he studied law at Columbia University where he graduated in 1957, the same year that he made his formal debut as a pianist in Carnegie Recital Hall. He was admitted to the bar in the following year, joining the firm of Scribner & Miller and becoming a partner in 1965. This firm later became Miller & McCarthy. As a pianist, Miller sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pianist
A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, jazz, blues, and all sorts of popular music, including rock and roll. Most pianists can, to an extent, easily play other keyboard-related instruments such as the synthesizer, harpsichord, celesta, and the organ. Pianists past and present Modern classical pianists dedicate their careers to performing, recording, teaching, researching, and learning new works to expand their repertoire. They generally do not write or transcribe music as pianists did in the 19th century. Some classical pianists might specialize in accompaniment and chamber music, while others (though comparatively few) will perform as full-time soloists. Classical Mozart could be considered the first "concert pianist" as he performed widely on the piano. Composers Bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Group For Contemporary Music
The Group for Contemporary Music is an American chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. It was founded in New York City in 1962 by Joel Krosnick, Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen and gave its first concert on October 22, 1962 in Columbia University's MacMillin Theatre. Krosnik left the ensemble in 1963. It was the first contemporary music ensemble based at a university and run by composers. The Group was based at Columbia University from 1962 until 1971, when it took up residency at the Manhattan School of Music. Initial support was provided by the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia, followed later by support from a broad range of foundations and public sources. The Group's success led the Rockefeller Foundation to form lavishly-funded "spin-off" ensembles at Rutgers University, the University at Buffalo, the University of Iowa and the University of Chicago in the middle 1960s. Early supporters of the Group included such Columbia facult ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Smith (jazz Musician)
William Overton Smith (September 22, 1926 – February 29, 2020) was an American clarinetist and composer. He worked extensively in modern classical music, Third Stream, third stream and jazz, and was perhaps best known for having played with pianist Dave Brubeck intermittently from the 1940s to the early 2000s. Smith frequently recorded jazz under the name Bill Smith, but his classical compositions are credited under the name William O. Smith. Early life and education Smith was born in Sacramento, California, Sacramento and grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing clarinet at the age of ten. He put together a jazz group to play for dances at 13, and at the age of 15 he joined the Oakland Symphony. He idolized Benny Goodman, but after high school, a brief cross-country tour with a dance band ended his romance for the life of a traveling jazz musician. He gave two weeks' notice when the band reached Washington, D.C. Encouraged by an older band member, Smith to New York ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conlon Nancarrow
Samuel Conlon Nancarrow (; October 27, 1912 – August 10, 1997) was an American- Mexican composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. Nancarrow is best remembered for his ''Studies for Player Piano'', being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realizing their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation and did not become widely known until the 1980s. Biography Early years Nancarrow was born in Texarkana, Arkansas. He played trumpet in a jazz band in his youth before studying music first in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later in Boston, Massachusetts, with Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Nicolas Slonimsky. He met Arnold Schoenberg during that composer's brief stay in Boston in 1933. In Boston, Nancarrow joined the Communist Party. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he traveled to Spain to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in fighting against Francisco Franco. He was in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition ''4′33″'', which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Johnston (composer)
Benjamin Burwell Johnston Jr. (March 15, 1926 – July 21, 2019) was an American contemporary music composer, known for his use of just intonation. He was called "one of the foremost composers of microtonal music" by Philip Bush and "one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer" by John Rockwell. Biography Johnston was born in Macon, Georgia, and taught composition and theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1951 to 1986, before retiring to North Carolina. During his time teaching, he was in contact with avant-garde figures such as John Cage, La Monte Young, and Iannis Xenakis. Johnston's students have included Stuart Saunders Smith, Neely Bruce, Thomas Albert, Michael Pisaro, Manfred Stahnke, and Kyle Gann. He also considered his practice of just intonation to have influenced other composers, including James Tenney and Larry Polansky. In 1946 he married dance band singer Dorothy Haines, but they soon divorced. In 1950 he married artis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Cowell
Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 2022.Campbell, Brett (2014)"Liberating Henry Cowell's Music at San Quentin" ''San Francisco Classical Voice''. Retrieved 19 June 2022. Earning a reputation as an extremely controversial performer and eccentric composer, Cowell became a leading figure of American avant-garde music for the first half of the 20th century — his writings and music serving as a great influence to similar artists at the time, including Lou Harrison, George Antheil, and John Cage, among others.Swed, Mark (2010)"Critic's notebook: Revelatory Henry Cowell revival at Lincoln Center" ''The Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved 19 June 2022. He is considered one of America's most important and influential composers. Cowell was mostly self-taught and developed a unique musical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Crumb
George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical language which "range in mood from peaceful to nightmarish". Crumb's compositions are known for pushing the limits of technical prowess by way of frequent use of extended techniques. The unusual timbres he employs evoke a surrealist atmosphere which portray emotions of considerable intensity with vast and sometimes haunting soundscapes. His few large-scale works include '' Echoes of Time and the River'' (1967), which won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and ''Star-Child'' (1977), which won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition; however, his output consists of mostly music for chamber ensembles or solo instrumentalists. Among his best known compositions are '' Black Angels'' (1970), a striking commentary on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Perle
George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. This serialist style, and atonality in general, was the subject of much of his theoretical writings. His 1962 book, ''Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern'' remains a standard text for 20th-century classical music theory. Among Perle's awards was the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Wind Quintet No. 4. Life and career Perle was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. He graduated from DePaul University, where he studied with Wesley LaViolette and received private lessons from Ernst Krenek. Later, he served as a technician fifth grade in the United States Army during World War II. He earned his doctorate at New York University in 1956. Perle composed with a technique of his own devising called "twelve-tone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Kolb
Barbara Kolb (born February 10, 1939) is an American composer. Her music uses sound masses and often creates vertical structures through simultaneous rhythmic or melodic units ( motifs or figures). Kolb's musical style can be identified by her use of colorful textures, impressionistic touch, and atonal vocabulary, with influences stemming from literary and visual arts. She was the first American woman composer to win the Rome Prize. Life and music Kolb was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She received her B.M. (cum laude, 1961) and M.M. degrees (1964) from the Hartt College of Music (now The Hartt School) at the University of Hartford, where she studied with Arnold Franchetti, Lukas Foss and Gunther Schuller. Following her graduation, Kolb relocated to Vienna, Austria, from 1966 to 1967 with a Fulbright Fellowship grant. She was the first female American composer to win the Rome Prize rix de Rome in 1969. From 1979 to 1982, Kolb served as the artistic director of contemporary music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvey Sollberger
Harvey Sollberger (born May 11, 1938 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Cedar Rapids, Iowa) is an American composer, flautist, flutist, and conducting, conductor specializing in contemporary classical music. Life Sollberger holds an M.A. degree from Columbia University, where his composition instructors included Jack Beeson and Otto Luening. In 1962 he co-founded (with Charles Wuorinen) The Group for Contemporary Music in New York City, which he directed for 27 years. He is emeritus professor of music at the University of California, San Diego. He taught at Columbia University, the Manhattan School of Music, and Indiana University. From 1997 to 2005 he served as Music Director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus. His music has been released on Composers Recordings, Inc. He currently lives in Strawberry Point, Iowa. Awards * 1969 Guggenheim Fellowship * Fromm commission * Koussevitzky commission * Naumberg Foundations commission * National Endowment for the Arts References External link ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Composers Recordings, Inc
Composers Recordings, Inc. (CRI) was an American record label dedicated to the recording of contemporary classical music by American composers. It was founded in 1954 by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore, and Oliver Daniel, and based in New York City. The label released over 600 recordings on LP, cassette, and CD. It went out of business in 2003 due to financial pressures, and the rights to CRI's recordings were transferred to New World Records in 2006. Selected composers * Samuel Adler *Dominick Argento *Aaron Avshalomov *Jacob Avshalomov * Milton Babbitt *Samuel Barber * Jennifer Margaret Barker''Nyvaigs'', CRI862, 2000 *Leslie Bassett * Irwin Bazelon *William Bergsma *Irving Berlin *Chester Biscardi * Marc Blitzstein *Henry Brant *Anthony Braxton * Martin Bresnick * Margaret Brouwer *Earle Brown *John Cage *Ronald Caltabiano *Elliott Carter *Chou Wen-chung *Chen Yi * John Corigliano *George Crumb * Henry Cowell *Alvin Curran * David Diamond *Jacob Druckman * Judy Dunaway *Donald ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
