Brian Dennis was an English

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

composer, and author born in Marple,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

in May 1941 and died in June 1998. Brian studied with

Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

, Berio,

Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since� ...

and

Cathy Berberian Catherine Anahid Berberian (July 4, 1925 – March 6, 1983) was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henr ...

at The Cologne Course for New Music and was a lecturer in Composition and Contemporary Music at

Royal Holloway College Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

, University of London. Brian wrote two books in the 1970s: Experimental Music in Schools () and Projects in Sound (), which propose a new graphical form of

Musical notation Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...

, showing instruments as images representing their sound, rather than traditional notation on a stave. For example, the notation of a scraping wood

Güiro The güiro () is a Puerto Rican percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines (see photo) along the notches to produce a ratchet sound. The güiro ...

would be shown as zig-zag lines. Both books have been used extensively in classrooms and became part of the National Curriculum of England, Wales and Northern Ireland He also featured in BBC documentary Music in Schools and has inspired Dan Mayfield's School of Noise. His compositions include approximately 150 songs many of which are settings of Chinese poems with lyrics in English prepared by the composer, as well as a number of piano pieces. He completed a trilogy of one-act operas based on Japanese Noh plays as well as an unfinished three-act opera based on

The Snow Queen "The Snow Queen" ( da, Snedronningen) is an original fairy tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It was first published 21 December 1844 in '' New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Second Collection'' (''Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samli ...

Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisti ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dennis, Brian 1941 births 1998 deaths British music educators 20th-century English composers Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London