İlhan Kemaleddin Mimaroğlu (, March 11, 1926 – July 17, 2012) was a Turkish American musician and

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

composer. He was born in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, the son of the famous architect

Mimar Kemaleddin Bey Ahmet Kemalettin or Kemaleddin (1870-13 July 1927), widely known as Mimar Kemalettin (Kemalettin the Architect) and Kemalettin Bey, was a renowned Turkish architect the during the late Ottoman Empire and the early years of the newly established ...

depicted on the

Turkish lira The lira ( tr, Türk lirası; sign: ₺; ISO 4217 code: TRY; abbreviation: TL) is the official currency of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. One lira is divided into one hundred ''kuruş''. History Ottoman lira (1844–1923) The lira, along with t ...

banknotes, denomination 20 lira, of the 2009 E-9 emission. He graduated from

Galatasaray High School Galatasaray High School ( tr, Galatasaray Lisesi, french: Lycée de Galatasaray), established in what was then Constantinople and is now Istanbul, in 1481, is the oldest high school in Turkey. It is also the second-oldest Turkish educational in ...

in 1945 and the Ankara Law School in 1949. He went to study in New York supported by a Rockefeller Scholarship. He studied musicology at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

under

Paul Henry Lang Paul Henry Lang (August 28, 1901 – September 21, 1991) was a Hungarian-American musicologist and music critic. Career Lang was born as "Pál Láng" in Budapest, Hungary, and was educated in Catholic schools. In 1918, as World War I was coming ...

and composition under

Douglas Moore Douglas Stuart Moore (August 10, 1893 – July 25, 1969) was an American composer, songwriter, organist, pianist, conductor, educator, actor, and author. A composer who mainly wrote works with an American subject, his music is generally charact ...

. During the 1960s he studied in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Center under

Vladimir Ussachevsky Vladimir Alexeevich Ussachevsky (November 3, 1911 in Hailar, China – January 2, 1990 in New York, New York) was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music. Biography Vladimir Ussachevsky was born in the Hailar Distric ...

and on occasions worked with

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined ...

and

Stefan Wolpe Stefan Wolpe (25 August 1902, Berlin – 4 April 1972, New York City) was a German-Jewish-American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz mo ...

. His notable students included

Ingram Marshall Ingram Douglass Marshall (May 10, 1942May 31, 2022) was an American composer and a onetime student of Vladimir Ussachevsky and Morton Subotnick. Early life and education Marshall was born in Mount Vernon, New York. He was the son of Bernice Dou ...

. He worked as a producer for

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

, where he created his own record label, Finnadar Records, in 1971. In the same year he collaborated with trumpeter

Freddie Hubbard Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...

on an anti-war statement, ''

Sing Me a Song of Songmy Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung accompaniment, wi ...

''. He also was the producer for

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and ...

’ '' Changes One'' and ''

Changes Two ''Changes Two'' is an album by Charles Mingus. It was recorded on 27, 28, and 30 December 1974 at Atlantic Studios in New York City—the same sessions which resulted in Mingus's album ''Changes One (Mingus), Changes One''. Atlantic Records initia ...

'', and contributed to the soundtrack of

Federico Fellini Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most i ...

's ''

Fellini Satyricon ''Fellini Satyricon'', or simply ''Satyricon'', is a 1969 Italian fantasy drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini and loosely based on Petronius's work ''Satyricon'', written during the reign of Emperor Nero and set in Imperial Rome ...

''. He was awarded the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in music composition in 1971. İlhan Mimaroğlu died of pneumonia in 2012.

Discography

For acoustic instruments

Albums for solo piano produced by İlhan Mimaroğlu under the Finnadar label: *Meral Guneyman plays the piano music of Frank Bridge, Anton Webern and Abel Decaux “one of year’s five best” (Fanfare Magazine, Peter Rabinowitz) * ''September Moon, a Nocturnal Seascape'' for orchestra * ''Antistrophes'' for flute and piano * ''Deformations'' for clarinet and piano * ''Idols of Perversity'' for solo viola and string ensemble (1974) * ''Monologlar'' (Monologue) for clarinet and viola (1997) * ''Monologue I'' for unaccompanied clarinet * ''Monologue II'' for unaccompanied violin * ''Monologue III'' for unaccompanied English horn * ''Üç parça'' (1952) * ''Pieces Sentimentales'' for piano * ''Anı ve Günce Sonatı'' for piano * ''Rosa'' for piano (1978) * ''Valses ignobles et sentencieuses'' for piano (World Premiere by Meral Guneyman, pianist, Merkin Hall, New York City, 1986) * ''Yaylı dördüller'' * ''Yaylı çalgılar için gece ezgileri'' * ''Sessions'' for piano (1977) * String Quartet No.4 ''"Like There's Tomorrow"'', with voice obbligato (Janis Siegel, Vocals) * ''Three Pieces for Piano'' (a) Prelude (b) Waltz (c) Boogie (Finnadar Records) (Musiques Noires-Meral Guneyman, piano solo)

Magnetic Tape

Most of these works utilize concrete sounds, but there are also occasional electronic elements. * ''Görsel Çalışma'' (1965) * ''Agony'' (1964) * ''Preludes'' for magnetic tape (1966–1976) * ''Music for Jean Dubuffet's Coucou Bazar'' (1973) * ''Le Tombeau d'Edgar A. Poe'' (1964) * ''Intermezzo'' (1964) * ''Bowery Bum'' (1964) * ''Wings of the Delirious Demon'' (1969) * ''To Kill a Sunrise'' (1974) * ''Tract'', a composition of

Agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...

Music for electromagnetic tape (1975) (

Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...

) * ''To Kill a Sunrise and La Ruche'' (1976) (Folkways Records) * ''The Offering'' for tape with pre-recorded voice (Finnadar Records)

Acoustic plus Electronic Sounds (Tape)

* ''Still Life 1980'' for cello and tape ( Finnadar/

) * ''Music Plus One'' for violin and tape (Finnadar/Atlantic Records) * ''

'' (1971) * ''Immolation Scene'' for voice and tape (1983) (Finnadar/Atlantic Records)

Notes

References

*Gluck, Bob. �
Uptown and Downtown, Electronic Music and “Free Jazz”, Ankara and New York: Interview with Turkish Composer İlhan Mimaroğlu (1926–2012)
” ''eContact! 14.4 — TES 2011: Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium / Symposium électroacoustique de Toronto'' (March 2013). Montréal: CEC.

External links

Mimaroglu Discography on Folkways

Finding aid to the Īlhan Mimaroğ̆lu papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

The film reveals the life and times of the electronics composer and record producer beyond the world of music.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mimaroglu, Ilhan 1926 births American people of Turkish descent Columbia University faculty Galatasaray High School alumni Ankara University Faculty of Law alumni Columbia University alumni Turkish electronic musicians 2012 deaths Turkish composers People from Istanbul Deaths from pneumonia in New York (state)