Rolf Rainer Gehlhaar (30 December 1943 – 7 July 2019), was an American composer, Professor in Experimental Music at

Coventry University , mottoeng = By Art and Industry , established = , type = Public , endowment = £28 million (2015) , budget = £787.5 million , chancellor = Margaret Casely-Hayford , vice_chancellor = John Latham , students = () , undergr ...

and researcher in assistive technology for music.

Life

Born in Breslau, Gehlhaar was the son of a German rocket scientist, who emigrated to the United States in 1953 to work at a rocket-development research centre in New Mexico. Although he took an interest in music from the age of eight or younger, in the post-war years the family could not afford for him to learn an instrument, and so Rolf only began to play the piano at the age of fifteen, and at about the same time began to compose for fun. He took American citizenship in 1958 and studied at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Initially, he had studied medicine, but soon changed his major to philosophy and the philosophy of science; then at Yale he attended a course in composition, which was an arousing experience. He moved to

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

, Germany, in 1967 to become assistant to

Karlheinz 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-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...

, and became a member of his performing ensemble. In 1969, together with

Johannes Fritsch Johannes Georg Fritsch (27 July 1941 – 29 April 2010) was a German composer. At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle's house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Kna ...

and

David C. Johnson David C. Johnson (born January 30, 1940 in Batavia, New York) is an American composer, flautist, and performer of live electronic music. Life and career Johnson studied, among other places, at Harvard University (M.A. in composition 1964), wi ...

, he founded the Feedback Studio, Cologne, a new-music performance center and publishing house. He later moved to England, where he became in 1979 a founding member of the Electro-Acoustic Music Association of Great Britain. In 2002 he Became Senior Lecturer in Design and Digital Media at

; at the time of his death he was Professor in Experimental Music at Coventry University, School of Art & Design. He also was a founding member of the

British Paraorchestra Paraorchestra, sometimes referred to as British Paraorchestra, based in Bristol, is an integrated orchestra of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians - the first ever orchestra of its kind in the United Kingdom. The Paraorchestra was ...

and its technical director. His works are for both acoustic and electro-acoustic media, though he is best known for his work with computer-controlled composition, and for his interactive installations such as Sound=Space (1985), HeadSpace (2000), CaDaReMi (2006), Walking on Earth (2007), and has for many years collaborated with Luis Miguel Girao of Artshare, Aveiro, Portugal. He died in London on 7 July 2019.

Compositions

* "Beckenstück" for 6 amplified cymbals (1969) * "Klavierstück 2-2 for 2 pianos (1970) * "Phase" for orchestra and time delay (1972) * "Musi-ken" for string quartet (1972) * "Liebeslied" for orchestra and alto (1974) * ''Solipse'' for cello and tape delay (1974) * ''Five German Dances'' for 4-track tape (1975) * ''Resonanzen'' for 8 orchestral groups (1976) * "Lamina"! for orchestra and trombone (1977) * ''Polymorph'' for bass clarinet and tape delay (1978) * "Linear A" for marimbaphone (and bass marimba) (1978) * "Strangeness, Charm and Colour" for piano, 2 Tp and Tbne (1978) * "Fluid" for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1980) * ''Sub Rosa'' for 4-track tape (1980) * "Step by Step...music for ears in motion" real-time computer generated 3-dimensional sounds with 4 instruments, (IRCAM 1981) * "Tokamak" for orchestra and piano (1982) * "Naiiri" for amplified violin (or electric violin or viola) (1983) * "SOUND=SPACE" interactive computer controlled musical environment (1985) * '' Diagonal Flying'' for piano and live electronics (1989) * "Chronik" for 2 pianos, 2 percussionists & electronics (1991) * ''Cusps, Swallowtails, and Butterflies'' for amplified percussion and tape in a Sound=Space (1992) * "Grand Unified Theory of Everything" for alto/bass flute, alto/bass clarinet and piano (1992) * ''Quantum Leap'' for piano (1994) * "Sonnet for mixed" choir (8-8-8-8) (1996) * ''Astral Shadows'' for 6 dancers in a Sound=Space (1997) * "Divine Wind" for saxophone quartet (S,A,T,Bar.) (1997) * ''Waiting for Rain'' for soprano, flute, violin, viola da gamba and 2 harpsichords (1998) * "Cybersong" for tenor and wearable electronics (2003) * "MULTIVERSE" for a camera-based performance system (2006) * "VIAGEM" for an orchestra of disabled musicians, a

Casa da Música The Casa da Música is a concert hall in Porto, Portugal. It was designed by architect Rem Koolhaas and opened in 2005. Designed to mark the festive year of 2001 in which the city of Porto was designated European Capital of Culture, it was the ...

project (2010) * "SONG" for alto saxophone (2012)

Publications

* Gehlhaar, R., Girao, L. M., Rodrigues, P., Penha, R. "Instrument for Everyone: Designing New Means of Musical Expression for Disabled Creators",

, Porto; DRHA 2010 Conference Proceedings, Brunel University 2010 * Gehlhaar, R., Girao, L. M., Rodrigues, P. M., "CaDaReMi, an Educational Game", ''ICDVRAT'' Intl Journal for Disability and Human Development 2010. * Almeida, A. P., Girao, L. M., Gehlhaar, R. Rodrigues, P. and Rodrigues, H. "SOUND=SPACE: Music Perception in Action". In ''Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Multimedia and Information and Communication Technologies in Education'' (Porto, April 2009), Formatex, 1199–1203. * Gehlhaar, R., Girao, L. M., Rodrigues, P. M., Almeida, A. P., 2008. "Musical Topologies in Sound=Space". In ''28th ISME World Conference. Bologna, Italy'', (CD-ROM / ) * Almeida, A. P., Girao, L. M., Gehlhaar, R. and Rodrigues, P. "SOUND=SPACE Update at Casa da Musica". In ''Proceedings of 2nd European Conference on Development Psychology of Music Perception (Roehampton, September 2008)'', Roehampton University, 80–84. * Almeida, A. P., Girao, L. M., Gehlhaar, R. Rodrigues, P., Neto, P. and Monica M. "SOUND=SPACE OPERA". in ''Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Disability Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies with ArtAbilitation (Maia, September 2008)'', ICDVRAT/University of Reading, 347–354. * Gehlhaar, R., Rodrigues, P., Girao, L, "Cybersong Nime'05, May 26–28, 2005". Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Exhibitions and performances

*SONG for alto Saxophone, Aveiro, Portugal 2012 *VIAGEM, orchestral composition for 80 disabled musicians, premiered April 2010 at Casa da Musica, Porto, Portugal

References

Cited sources

* * * *

External links

*
Some downloadable sheetmusic
musicaneo.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Gehlhaar, Rolf 1943 births 2019 deaths Yale University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni American classical composers American male classical composers Pupils of Karlheinz Stockhausen American people of German descent Academics of Coventry University 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers 20th-century American composers 21st-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians