The California EAR Unit was an American chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...

. The group was founded in March 1981 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The original members of the EAR Unit were Dorothy Stone (flute); James Rohrig (clarinet); Amy Knoles and Daniel Kennedy (percussion); Gaylord Mowrey and Michael McCandless (piano); Robin Lorentz and Mary Terranova (violin); Erika Duke (cello); and

Rand Steiger Rand Steiger (born June 18, 1957, in New York City) is an American composer, conductor, and pedagogue. Steiger attended the Manhattan School of Music and the California Institute of the Arts, where he became a faculty member in 1982. In 1987, he j ...

(conductor). By 1983 Terranova, Kennedy and McCandless had departed, and Arthur Jarvinen (percussion) and Lorna Eder (piano) joined. After many years with the same personnel, changes began to occur and one by one original members departed and new performers joined the group. Amy Knoles is the only remaining original member, along with longtime pianist Vicki Ray, and violinist Eric KM Clark. The EAR Unit was formed at the

California Institute of the Arts 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 both ...

in 1981 by a group of students who had all been performing in the CalArts 20th-Century Players under the direction of Stephen "Lucky" Mosko. Inspired by their experiences with Mosko, and aware that Los Angeles at the time did not have a resident contemporary music ensemble, Steiger and Rohrig gathered a group of colleagues together after a rehearsal and in the meeting that followed in the CalArts Cafeteria the idea for the group was developed. The name EAR Unit was chosen sometime later, after many weeks of debate. In 1983 the EAR Unit performed a concert at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (one of the first of over 100 they would play there) featuring the West Coast premiere of

Elliott Carter Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer. One of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century, he combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra- ...

's ''Triple Duo'',

Louis Andriessen Louis Joseph Andriessen (; 6 June 1939 – 1 July 2021) was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Although ...

's "Hoketus" a satirical work written for the occasion by

Nicholas Slonimsky Nicolas Slonimsky ( – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (russian: Никола́й Леони́дович Сло́нимский), was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. B ...

, and the premiere of ''While you were Art'', by

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...

. Zappa asked the EAR Unit to perform the work silently while playing a synthesized recording, and they complied with his wishes, learning the piece and matching the recording precisely. But after the concert he told the ''Los Angeles Times'' that the statement of the piece "is that the whole of serious music in Los Angeles is as fake as the finger-synching in the piece." In the 1980s the EAR Unit often juxtaposed strikingly different works on the same program. At one of the first concerts in 1982, in a bank building in downtown Los Angeles, they presented a program that included works by

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...

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 ...

Frederic Rzewski Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. His major compositions, which often incorporate social an ...

, and

Donald Martino Donald James Martino (May 16, 1931 – December 8, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer. Biography Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Martino attended Plainfield High School. He began as a clarinetist, playing jazz for fun and p ...

. Later, in San Francisco they combined Martino's ''Noturno'' with Stockhausen's ''

Stimmung ''Stimmung'', for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work n ...

'', and Subotnick's ''Key to Songs''. Beginning in 1987 the California EAR Unit had been Ensemble-in-Residence at the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

. During that time they have presented over 500 premieres of musical works. Later they held court at REDCAT in the Disney Hall Complex in downtown Los Angeles. In 1999 The EAR Unit received a Letter of Distinction from the

American Music Center New Music USA is a new music organization formed by the merging of the American Music Center with Meet The Composer on November 8, 2011. The new organization retains the granting programs of the two former organizations as well as two media program ...

. Among the many other composers the EAR Unit has commissioned and premiered are

Eve Beglarian Eve Beglarian (born Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S., July 22, 1958) is a contemporary American composer, performer and audio producer of Armenian descent. Her music is often characterized as postminimalist.Woodard, Josef"A Bird’s Eye, a Wonderer’s E ...

Henry Brant Henry Dreyfuss Brant (September 15, 1913 – April 26, 2008) was a Canadian-born American composer. An expert orchestrator with a flair for experimentation, many of Brant's works featured spatialization techniques. Biography Brant was born ...

Kitty Brazelton Kitty Brazelton (born 1951 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) is a New York-based American composer, bandleader, improviser, singer/songwriter, and instrumentalist. She has released albums and fronted bands across varied genres, including contemporary ...

Joan LaBarbara Joan Linda La Barbara (born June 8, 1947) is an American vocalist and composer known for her explorations of non-conventional or "extended" vocal techniques. Considered to be a vocal virtuoso in the field of contemporary music, she is credited wit ...

Annea Lockwood Annea Lockwood (born July 29, 1939, in Christchurch, New Zealand) is a New Zealand-born American composer and academic musician. She taught electronic music at Vassar College. Her work often involves recordings of natural Musique concrète, found ...

Scott Lindroth Scott Allen Lindroth (born 1958) is an American composer and teacher based near Durham, North Carolina. Lindroth joined the faculty of Duke University in 1990, where he is the Vice-Provost for the Arts and the Kevin D. Gorter Associate Professo ...

Robert Paterson (composer) Robert Paterson (born April 29, 1970) is an American composer of contemporary classical music, as well as a conductor and percussionist. His catalog includes over 100 compositions. He has been called a "modern day master" and is primarily known f ...

Mel Powell Mel Powell (born Melvin Epstein) (February 12, 1923 – April 24, 1998) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, and the founding dean of the music department at the California Institute of the Arts. He served as a music educator for over ...

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...

Erkki-Sven Tüür Erkki-Sven Tüür (born 16 October 1959) is an Estonian composer. Life and career Tüür () was born in Kärdla on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. He studied flute and percussion at the Tallinn Music School from 1976 to 1980 and composition wit ...

Wadada Leo Smith Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (born December 18, 1941) is an American trumpeter and composer, working primarily in the fields of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation. He was one of three finalists for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for ''Ten Free ...

Ann Millikan Ann E. Millikan (born June 10, 1963) is an American composer. Life and career Ann Millikan was born in San Diego County, California. She studied music at San José State University, where she graduated with a BA. She went on to graduate with a MFA ...

Nicholas Frances Chase Nicholas Frances Chase (born Nebeil Mahayni; 1966 in Roseburg, Oregon) is an American composer and performer. Chase received a Bachelor of Arts in German Area Studies from University of Oregon in 1993 and studied music composition at the Califor ...

and

Julia Wolfe Julia Wolfe (born December 18, 1958) is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are rech ...

External links

The California EAR Unit official site

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:California EAR Unit Musical groups from Los Angeles Contemporary classical music ensembles Musical groups established in 1981 1981 establishments in California California Institute of the Arts alumni