Serge Alexandrovich Tcherepnin (russian: Серге́й Александрович Черепнин; born 2 February 1941) is a Russian-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 electronic-instrument builder of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

parentage. Tcherepnin is noted for creating the

Serge Modular synthesizer The Serge synthesizer ( Serge Modular or Serge Modular Music System) is an analogue modular synthesizer system originally developed by Serge Tcherepnin, Rich Gold and Randy Cohen at CalArts in late 1972. The first 20 Serge systems (then called "Tc ...

Biography

Serge Tcherepnin was born in

Issy-les-Moulineaux Issy-les-Moulineaux () is a commune in the southwestern suburban area of Paris, France, lying on the left bank of the river Seine. Its citizens are called ''Isséens'' in French. It is one of Paris' entrances and is located from Notre-Dame Cath ...

, near

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, the son of composer Aleksandr Nikolayevich Tcherepnin and grandson of composer Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin. His mother was Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming. An online biography of Alexander by

Phillip Ramey Phillip Ramey (born September 12, 1939 in Elmhurst, Illinois, Elmhurst, Illinois, United States) is an American composer, pianist, and writer on music. He studied composition with the Russian-born composer Alexander Tcherepnin from 1959 to 1962, f ...

, Vice-President of The Tcherepnin Society, includes a photograph of the family and shows Serge at a young age. Serge had his first instruction in harmony with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

and studied from 1958 to 1963 at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

with

Leon Kirchner Leon Kirchner (January 24, 1919 – September 17, 2009) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he won a Pulitzer Pr ...

and

Billy Jim Layton Billy may refer to: * Billy (name), a name (and list of people with the name) Animals * Billy (dog), a dog breed * Billy (pigeon), awarded the Dickin Medal in 1945 * Billy (pygmy hippo), a pet of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge * Billy, a youn ...

. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1960. In 1961 he studied at the Darmstadt Vacation Courses with

Luigi Nono Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music. Biography Early years Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono beg ...

. He then studied in Europe with

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

Herbert Eimert Herbert Eimert (8 April 1897 – 15 December 1972) was a German music theorist, musicologist, journalist, music critic, editor, radio producer, and composer. Education Herbert Eimert was born in Bad Kreuznach. He studied music theory and compo ...

, and

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 and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

. From 1968 to 1970 he participated in the Intermedia Program at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. As an instructor at

CalArts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of bot ...

under

Morton Subotnick Morton Subotnick (born April 14, 1933) is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition '' Silver Apples of the Moon'', the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the foun ...

, Serge was exposed to some of the earliest modular synthesizers designed by

Don Buchla Donald Buchla (April 17, 1937 – September 14, 2016) was an American pioneer in the field of sound synthesis. Buchla popularized the "West Coast" style of synthesis. He was co-inventor of the voltage controlled modular synthesizer along with Robe ...

. This environment led Serge to develop his own eponymous modular synthesizer system called the Serge Modular. Electronics were manufactured by his own company Serge Modular Music Systems, which was officially founded in 1974 and occupied various locations in California, including

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

and an office on

Haight Street Haight Street () is the principal street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, also known as the Upper Haight due to its elevation. The street stretches from Market Street, through the Lower Haight neighborhood, to Stanyan Street in the Up ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. After closing the company in 1986, he returned to France. As of 2018 Serge is once again involved in modular synthesis, having been appointed as "Chief Innovation Officer" of German synthesizer company Random*Source which has largely focused on recreating the Serge Modular system using modern manufacturing techniques. Serge's brother Ivan Aleksandrovich Tcherepnin was also a well-known composer, and Ivan’s sons Stefan (born 1977) and Sergeï (born 1981) are also involved in composition.

Compositions

A selective list includes: *''Inventions'', for piano (1960) *String Trio (1960) *String Quartet (1961) *''Kaddish'' (text by

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

), for speaker, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, piano, two percussionists (1962) *''Figures-Grounds'', for 7–77 instruments (1964) *''Morning After Piece'', for saxophone and piano (1966) *''Two Tapes (Giuseppe’s Background I–II)'', for 4-track tape (1966) *''Two More Tapes (Addition and Subtraction)'', for 2-track tape (1966) *''Quiet Day at Bach'', for solo instrument and tape (1967) *''Piece of Wood'', multimedia piece for performers and actors (1967) *''Piece of Wood with Weeping Woman'', multimedia piece for performers, women, stagehand, and tape (1967) *''Film'', for Baschet instruments, traditional instruments, tape machines, four-channel amplification, ring modulators, theater, stage, and lights (1967) *''For

Ilona Kabos Ilona Kabos (7 December 189327 May 1973) was a Hungarian-British pianist and teacher. Biography Kabos was born in Budapest in 1893 (some sources give her year of birth as 1894, 1898 or 1902). She studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music under ...

'', for piano (1968) *''Definitive Death Music'', for amplified saxophone and chamber ensemble (1968) *''"Hat" for Joseph Beuys'', for actor and tape (1968) *''Paysages électroniques'', film score (1977) *''Samba in Aviary'', film score (1978)

Sources

* * * *

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tcherepnin, Serge 1941 births Harvard University alumni Living people 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers American male classical composers American classical composers Benois family American people of Chinese descent Russian people of Chinese descent

Serge Serge may refer to: *Serge (fabric), a type of twill fabric *Serge (llama) (born 2005), a llama in the Cirque Franco-Italien and internet meme *Serge (name), a masculine given name (includes a list of people with this name) *Serge (post), a hitchi ...

Pupils of Karlheinz Stockhausen 21st-century American composers 20th-century American composers