Alvin Lucier

Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. (May 14, 1931 – December 1, 2021) was an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. Much of his work is influenced by science and explores the physical properties of sound itself: resonance of spaces, phase interference between closely tuned pitches, and the transmission of sound through physical media.

Early life

Lucier was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, the son of Kathryn E. Lemery, a pianist, and Alvin Augustus Lucier, a lawyer who was Mayor of Nashua. He was educated in Nashua public and parochial schools and the Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale University and Brandeis University. In 1958 and 1959, Lucier studied with Lukas Foss and Aaron Copland at the Tanglewood Center. In 1960, Lucier left for Rome on a Fulbright grant, where he befriended American expatriate composer Frederic Rzewski and witnessed performances by John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and David Tudor that provided compelling alternatives to his classical training. He returned from Rome in 1962 to take up a position at Brandeis as director of the University Chamber Chorus, which presented classical vocal works alongside modern compositions and new commissions.

At a 1963 Chamber Chorus concert at New York's Town Hall, Lucier met Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley, experimental composers who were also directors of the ONCE Festival, an annual multi-media event in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A year later, Mumma and Ashley invited the Chamber Chorus to the ONCE Festival; and, in 1966, Lucier reciprocated by inviting Mumma, Ashley, and mutual friend David Behrman to Brandeis for a concert of works by the four composers. Based on the success of that concert, Lucier, Mumma, Ashley, and Behrman embarked on a tour of the United States and Europe under the name the Sonic Arts Group (at Ashley's suggestion, the name was later changed to the Sonic Arts Union). More a musical collective than a proper quartet, the Sonic Arts Union presented works by each of its members, sharing equipment and assisting when necessary. Performing and touring together for a decade, the Sonic Arts Union became inactive in 1976.

In 1970, Lucier left Brandeis for Wesleyan University. In 1972, Lucier became a musical director of the Viola Farber Dance Company, a position he held until 1979.

Personal life

Lucier was married to his first wife, Mary, until their divorce in 1972. He then married Wendy Stokes; they had one daughter and remained together until his death.

Lucier died at his home in Middletown, Connecticut, on December 1, 2021, at age 90, from complications of a fall.

Works

Though Lucier had composed chamber and orchestral works since 1952, the composer and his critics count his 1965 composition ''Music for Solo Performer'' as the proper beginning of his compositional career.

''I Am Sitting in a Room''

One of Lucier's most important and best-known works is ''I Am Sitting in a Room'' (1969), in which Lucier records himself narrating a text, and then plays the recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Since every enclosed area has a characteristic resonance (e.g., between a large hall and a small room), the effect is that certain frequencies are gradually emphasized as they resonate in the room, until eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself. The recited text describes this process in action. It begins, “I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice…”, and concludes with “I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have,” referring to his own stuttering.

Other key pieces

Other key pieces include ''North American Time Capsule'' (1966), which employed a prototype vocoder to isolate and manipulate elements of speech; ''Music On A Long Thin Wire'' (1977), in which a piano wire is strung across a room and activated by an amplified oscillator and magnets on either end, producing changing overtones and sounds; ''Crossings'' (1982), in which tones play across a steadily rising sine wave producing interference beats; '' Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas'' (1973–74), in which the interference tones between sine waves create "troughs" and "valleys" of sound and silence; and '' Clocker'' (1978), which uses biofeedback and reverberation.

Students

Awards

Lucier was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Plymouth University in 2007.

Discography

* ''Orchestra Works'', New World Records

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