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Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. His major compositions, which often incorporate social and political themes, include the minimalist ''Coming Together'' and the variation set '' The People United Will Never Be Defeated!'', which has been called "a modern classic". Early life and education Rzewski was born on April 13, 1938, in Westfield, Massachusetts, to parents of Polish and Jewish descent, and raised Catholic. He began playing piano at age 5 and attended Phillips Academy, Harvard, and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston, and Milton Babbitt. In 1960, he went to Italy on a Fulbright grant, a trip which was formative in his future musical development. In addition to studying with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence on a Fulbright scholarship he began a career as a performer of ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
''The People United Will Never Be Defeated!'' (1975) is a piano composition by American composer Frederic Rzewski. ''The People United'' is a set of 36 variations on the Chilean song " ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!" by Sergio Ortega and Quilapayún, and received its world premiere on February 7, 1976, played by Ursula Oppens as part of the Bi-Centennial Piano Series at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall. Rzewski dedicated the composition to Oppens, who had commissioned it, and who recorded it in 1979; her recording was named "Record of the Year" in that year by ''Record World'', and received a Grammy nomination. Analysis The song on which the variations is based is one of many that emerged from the Unidad Popular coalition in Chile between 1969 and 1973, prior to the overthrow of the Salvador Allende government. Rzewski composed the variations in September and October 1975, as a tribute to the struggle of the Chilean people against the newl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musica Elettronica Viva
Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome, Italy, in 1966. It is "something of an irregular institution, a band that has come together intermittently through the years". Its founding members have been reported variously as Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran, Jon Phetteplace, and Frederic Rzewski; Rzewski, Curran, and Richard Teitelbaum; Curran, Phetteplace, Bryant, and Carol Plantamura; and Rzewski, Teitelbaum, Plantamura, Bryant, Phetteplace, Ivan Vandor, and Steve Lacy. Garrett List and George E. Lewis subsequently joined the group. MEV were early experimenters with the use of synthesizers to transform sounds: a 1967 concert in Berlin included a performance of John Cage's ''Solo for Voice 2'' with Plantamura's voice transformed through a Moog synthesizer. At the end of the 1960s, they took part in the group Lo Zoo, founded by artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. They also used such "non-musical" objects as amplified panes of glass an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Compositions By Frederic Rzewski
{{unreferenced, date=October 2018 This is a list of compositions by Frederic Rzewski Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. His major compositions, which often incorporate social an .... Stage * ''The Persians'' (1985) * ''The Triumph of Death'' (1987–88) Orchestral * ''Nature Morte'', for small orchestra (1964) * ''A Long Time Man'', for piano and orchestra (1979) * ''Satyrica'', for guitar, double bass, piano, synthesizer, vibraphone, percussion, and symphony band (1983) * ''Una Breve Storia d'Estate'', for three flutes and orchestra (1983) * ''Scratch Symphony'' (1997) * ''Movable Types'' (1999) * ''Bring Them Home!'', for two percussion, two pianos and orchestra (2004), arranged for two percussion and two pianos * ''Piano Concerto'', for piano and orchestra (2013) * ''A Dog's Life'', for piano and orchestra (2014) Cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attica Prison Riots
The Attica Prison Riot, also known as the Attica Prison Rebellion, the Attica Uprising, or the Attica Prison Massacre, took place at the state prison in Attica, New York; it started on September 9, 1971, and ended on September 13 with the highest number of fatalities in the history of United States prison uprisings. Of the 43 men who died, 33 inmates and 10 correctional officers and employees, all but one guard and three inmates were killed by law enforcement gunfire when the state retook control of the prison on the final day of the uprising. The Attica Uprising has been described as a historical event in prisoners' rights movement. Prisoners revolted to seek better living conditions and political rights, claiming that they were treated as beasts. On September 9, 1971, 1,281 of the approximately 2,200 men incarcerated in the Attica Correctional Facility rioted and took control of the prison, taking 42 staff hostage. During the following four days of negotiations, authorities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Piston
Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Hamor Piston, a bookkeeper, and Leona Stover. He was the second of four children. Although his family was mainly of English origin, his paternal grandfather was a sailor named Antonio Pistone, who changed his name to Anthony Piston when he came to Maine from Genoa, Italy. In 1905 the composer's father, Walter Piston Sr, moved with his family to Boston, Massachusetts. Walter Jr first trained as an engineer at the Mechanical Arts High School in Boston, but was artistically inclined. After graduating in 1912, he enrolled in the Massachusetts Normal Art School, where he completed a four-year program in fine art in 1916. During the 1910s, Piston made a living playing piano and violin in dance bands and later playing violin in orchestras led by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Melville
Samuel Joseph Melville (born Samuel Joseph Grossman, 1934 – September 13, 1971), was the principal conspirator and bomb setter in the 1969 bombings of eight government and commercial office buildings in New York City. Melville cited his opposition to the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism as the motivation for the bombings. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to bombing the Federal Office Building in lower Manhattan, as well as to assaulting a marshal in a failed escape attempt. A key figure in the 1971 Attica Prison riots, he was shot and killed when the uprising was put down by force. Early life Sam Melville (a name borrowed from author Herman Melville) was born to Dorothy and William Grossman in 1934 in New York City. Dorothy left William and moved with Sam back to her hometown of Tonawanda, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. Melville lost sight in one eye at a young age because of a flying cinder. He claimed to have had a rough childhood because of his mother's series of al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido
"¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!" (; English: "The people united will never be defeated") is one of the most internationally renowned songs of the ''Nueva canción chilena'' (New Chilean Song) movement. The music of the song was composed by Sergio Ortega and the text written by Quilapayún. The song was composed and recorded in June 1970. History The song was initially composed as an anthem for the popular unity government, reflecting the spirit behind the mass mobilization of working-class people who in 1970 had elected Salvador Allende for the socialist transformation of Chile. During Allende's campaign ''El pueblo unido jamás será vencido'' was a frequent slogan. The song was interpreted and recorded by a number of music groups shortly after it was composed and performed publicly by Sergio Ortega and Quilapayún. ''New Chilean Song'' music ensembles such as Vientos del Pueblo, Inti-illimani among others, made successful recordings of the song that filled the airw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvin Curran
Alvin Curran (born December 13, 1938) is an American composer, performer, improviser, sound artist, and writer. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and lives and works in Rome, Italy. He is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter. Curran's music often makes use of electronics and environmental found sounds. He was a professor of music at Mills College in California until 2006 and now teaches privately in Rome and sporadically at various institutions. His works include solo performance pieces such as ''Endangered Species'', ''TransDadaExpress'', and ''Shofar''; radio works such as ''Crystal Psalms'', ''Un Altro Ferragosto'', ''I Dreamt John Cage Yodeling at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof'', and ''Living Room Music''; large-scale musical choreographic works such as ''Oh Brass on the Grass Alas'', for 300 amateur brass-band musicians, and the ''Maritime Rites'' series of performances on and near ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his Serialism, serial and electronic music. Biography Babbitt was born in Philadelphia to Albert E. Babbitt and Sarah Potamkin, who were Jewish. He was raised in Jackson, Mississippi, and began studying the violin when he was four but soon switched to clarinet and saxophone. Early in his life he was attracted to jazz and theater music, and "played in every pit-orchestra that came to town". Babbitt was making his own arrangements of popular songs by age 7, "wrote a lot of pop tunes for school productions", and won a local songwriting contest when he was 13. A Jackson newspaper called Babbitt a "whiz kid" and noted "that he had perfect pitch and could add up his family’s grocery bills in his head. In his teens he became a great fan of jazz cornet player Bix Beiderbecke." Babbitt's father was a mathematician, and Babbitt inten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
