Arnold Dreyblatt (born 1953) is 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 Def ...

, performance artist and visual artist.

Biography

Arnold Dreyblatt was born in 1953 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. His mother,

Lucille Wallenrod Lucille Wallenrod, also known as Lucille Wallenrod-Dreyblatt, (1918 – 1998) was an American artist. She was active in Long Island, New York from 1939 until the 1990s. Early life and education Lucille Wallenrod was born on October 4, 1920 in ...

(1918–1998), was a painter. He started his studies at Wesleyan University in the 1970s and transferred to the Center for Media Study at the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

. In 1982, Dreyblatt obtained a master's degree in composition from Wesleyan University; his thesis was titled, "Nodal Excitation". He studied music with

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

and

Alvin Lucier Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. (May 14, 1931 – December 1, 2021) was an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in ...

(at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

), and new media art with

Steina and Woody Vasulka Steina Vasulka (born Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir in 1940)
Soros Center for Contemporary Arts Budapest and Woody Vasul ...

. In his installations, performances and media works, Dreyblatt creates complex textual and spatial metaphors for memory which function as a media discourse on recollection and the archive. His installations, public artworks and performances have been exhibited and staged extensively in Europe. Dreyblatt's 2006 sculpture "Innocent Questions", which resembles the layout of an IBM punch card, is installed at the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Oslo, Norway. Among the second generation of New York minimal composers, Dreyblatt developed a unique approach to composition and music performance. He invented a set of new and original instruments, performance techniques and a system of tuning. His compositions are based on

harmonic A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', t ...

s and thus

just intonation In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals as whole number ratios (such as 3:2 or 4:3) of frequencies. An interval tuned in this way is said to be pure, and is called a just interval. Just intervals (and ...

, played either through a bowing technique he developed for his modified double bass, and other modified and conventional instruments which he specially tuned. He originally used a steady

pulse In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the n ...

provided by the bowing motion on his double bass (placing his music in the minimal category), but he eventually added many more instruments and more

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...

ic variety. Dreyblatt received a 1998 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. He has worked with

Paul Panhuysen Paul Panhuysen (21 August 1934 – 29 January 2015) was a Dutch composer, visual and sound artist. He founded and directed Het Apollohuis, an art space that functioned during the 80's and 90's having artists doing sound installations, sound scu ...

Pierre Berthet Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

and Ex-Easter Island Head. He has been based in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, since 1984. In 2007, he was elected to the

Academy of Arts, Berlin The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...

Collaboration

Dreyblatt has collaborated on material with the psych-folk band

Megafaun Megafaun is an American psychedelic folk band based in Durham, North Carolina.Mongillo, Peter (2010) "Megafaun relaxes into headlining slot", ''Austin American-Statesman'', April 27, 2010, p. D02 History Brothers Brad Cook (bass, guitar) and Phi ...

. They recorded an album in 2012 and performed at the third annual Hopscotch Music Festival in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Sout ...

, in September 2012 and at the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York City in February 2013.Arnold Dreyblatt and Megafaun at Ecstatic Music Festival
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Discography

* ''Nodal Excitation'', (

India Navigation India Navigation was an American record company and independent record label that specialized in avant-garde jazz in the 1970s and 1980s. It was founded by Bob Cummins, a corporate lawyer who helped jazz musicians with legal matters. Its catalogu ...

, 1982) * ''Propellers in Love'', and "High Life" ( HatART, 1986) * ''a haymisch groove'', Extraplatte, Vienna (1994) * ''Animal Magnetism'', (

Tzadik Tzadik ( he, צַדִּיק , "righteous ne, also ''zadik'', ''ṣaddîq'' or ''sadiq''; pl. ''tzadikim'' ''ṣadiqim'') is a title in Judaism given to people considered righteous, such as biblical figures and later spiritual masters. Th ...

) * ''The Sound of One String – Previously Unreleased Live Recordings 1979–1992'', (Table of the Elements, 1998) * "Escalator" on ''Renegade Heaven'', Bang on a Can All-Stars, ( Cantaloupe, 2000) * ''The Adding Machine'', (Cantaloupe, 2002) * ''Lapse'', (Table of the Elements, 2004) * ''Live at Federal Hall'', (Table of the Elements, 2006) * ''Resonant Relations'', (Cantaloupe, 2008) * ''Appalachian Excitation'', with Megafaun ( Northern Spy, 2013)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dreyblatt, Arnold Northern Spy Records artists 1953 births American installation artists American experimental musicians Living people 20th-century classical composers American male classical composers American classical composers American expatriates in Germany Musicians from Berlin Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin Drag City (record label) artists India Navigation artists Tzadik Records artists Wesleyan University alumni Pupils of Alvin Lucier Pupils of La Monte Young 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians