Jacob Isaacson (May 5, 1911 – September 8, 1980) was an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

. Isaacson was most noted for his own Colortone musical notation and his early works within this system. His association with the

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

movement was played down by Isaacson, who held European classical tradition in high regard, although his experimental and

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

compositions drew inevitable comparison.

Life

Isaacson was born on May 5, 1911 in

Midlothian, Virginia Midlothian ( ) is an unincorporated area in Chesterfield County, Virginia, U.S. Settled as a coal town, Midlothian village experienced suburbanization effects and is now part of the western suburbs of Richmond, Virginia south of the James Rive ...

to Alfred and Martha Isaacson who relocated to nearby Chesterfield four years later. Isaacson developed a keen interest in music and a proficiency at a number of instruments. He attended James River High School in Chesterfield and returned in 1937 to teach Art and Music there.
It was at James River High that Isaacson began a study of his

synesthesia Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who re ...

, a mild case of which he had correctly diagnosed, and his own emotional response to color. His private, experimental, compositions, "doodled" pieces consisting of finely inked lines on a conventional stave, took on a more powerful and expressive form and, in 1950, by now a lecturer at

Virginia State University Virginia State University (VSU or Virginia State) is a public historically Black land-grant university in Ettrick, Virginia. Founded on , Virginia State developed as the United States's first fully state-supported four-year institution of high ...

, he produced the first of his "Colortone" series.
---- Isaacson's Colortone notation, in its purest form, demanded nothing more from the musician than an emotional, response to color and shape. Ability and proficiency were secondary to sensitivity and subtlety in "reading" both the score and one's musical partners. These compositions quickly became part of his classes at Virginia State. ---- A move to

Mannes College Mannes School of Music is a music conservatory in The New School, a private research university in New York City. In the fall of 2015, Mannes moved from its previous location on Manhattan's Upper West Side to join the rest of the New School cam ...

, New York, in 1951 encouraged fresh creativity, and by 1958 Isaacson had produced a further 8 Colortone pieces, the first of his four "Abstractions", and "For

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

", a tribute to the Mexican artist, who had died in November the previous year. Isaacson had put aside sheet music, favoring slides, projections and abstract painting, and would not use printed scores again until his "Chromatics No. 1" in 1965.

List of significant works

The "Colortone" and "Abstractions" series can be performed by as many or as few musicians as conditions for performance allow and Isaacson refused to prescribe personnel for these pieces. *''Colortone'' series 1 to 9 (1950–1957) *''Abstractions'' series 1 to 4 (1955–1963) *''For Diego Rivera'' (1958) piano, brass septet, string quartet, orchestra. *''Chromatics'' series 1 to 4 (1965–1974) piano, 4 brass, recorder, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, orchestra, percussion, *''Lucent Harmonic Color'' (1975) magnetic tape, atlas marimba, percussion

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Isaacson, Jacob American male classical composers American classical composers Microtonal composers Experimental composers Postmodern composers Musical notation Fluxus Visual music artists People from Midlothian, Virginia 1911 births 1980 deaths 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians