Michael Tenzer (born 1957) is a

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 ...

, performer, and

music educator Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as elementary or secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a research area in which scholars do original ...

and scholar. Tenzer was born in New York City and studied music at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(BA. 1978) and

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 ...

(Ph.D. 1986). After teaching at Yale from 1986–96, he moved to

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

where he teaches

ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

and

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

performance, co-directs the doctoral program in

. Tenzer's compositions for chamber, solo and orchestral media have been performed in North America, Europe, and Asia, featuring performers such as Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri (tabla),

Alex Klein Alex Klein (born 1964, Porto Alegre) is an oboist who began his musical studies in his native Brazil at the age of nine, and made his solo orchestral debut the following year. At the age of eleven he was invited to join the Camerata Antigua, one o ...

(oboe) and

Evan Ziporyn Evan Ziporyn (b. Chicago, Illinois, December 14, 1959) is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn h ...

(clarinet). His publications have been recognized with the

Society for Ethnomusicology The Society for Ethnomusicology is, with the International Council for Traditional Music and thBritish Forum for Ethnomusicology one of three major international associations for ethnomusicology. Its mission is "to promote the research, study, an ...

's Alan P. Merriam Prize (best book of 2000) and the 34th annual ASCAP-Deems Taylor award, and his research has been supported with grants from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

and

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. Among his composition prizes are a

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

/Koussevitzky commission for a chamber work, ''Sources of Current''. After its premiere the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

called it "deft, sophisticated and inventive." He received the Charles Ives Center award for his percussion quartet (1981), the DiLorenzo prize for the octet ''Daya'' (1985) for string quartet and clarinets, and the Morse Fellowship to complete his ''Symphony for Strings'' (1988). Tenzer's music is available on New World, Canteloupe and Bali Stereo labels. Since 1977, Tenzer has been deeply involved with the

music of

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. He carried out several years of research and writing about it on a series of fellowships, among them a Fulbright (1982), a grant from the

Asian Cultural Council The Asian Cultural Council (ACC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing international cultural exchange between Asia and the U.S. and between the countries of Asia through the arts. Founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1963, AC ...

(1987) the Morse Fellowship (1989), and a National Endowment for the Humanities University Teacher's Fellowship (1994). An experienced performer and teacher of gamelan, Tenzer is the author of two books on the subject: ''Balinese Music'' (Periplus: 1991; 2nd ed. 1998) and '' Gamelan Gong Kebyar: The Art of 20th Century Balinese Music'' (University of Chicago Press 2000). More recently he publishe
Analytical Studies in World Music
(Oxford 2006). He was the first Western composer invited to compose for Balinese ensembles in Bali and has completed a series of works of an increasingly experimental character for the gamelan since 1982, among them ''Sinar Jegog'' (1985), ''Situ Banda'' ("Bridge of Monkeys"; 1989), ''Banyuari'' ("Tributary"; 1992), ''Talakalam'' for gamelan with tabla (1999), "Puser Belah" for 2 simultaneous gamelan ("Unstable Center"; 2003), and "Buk Katah" for gamelan with a nonet of brass, winds and piano ("Underleaf"; 2006). These works have been cited by Balinese critics as "an important and unique contribution to our cultural heritage". The last three compositions cited plus others are featured on the 2009 C
Let Others Name You
on New World records. In 1979, Tenzer co-founded the Sekar Jaya gamelan ensemble in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, an organization of Americans dedicated to the performance of Balinese arts that is now internationally known. Since 1996 he has directe
Gamelan Gita Asmara
in Vancouver.

External links

Michael Tenzer's Web PageGamelan Gita Asmara's Web Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tenzer, Michael 1957 births Living people American male composers 21st-century American composers Ethnomusicologists Gamelan musicians Asian Cultural Council grantees Musicians from New York City Pupils of Gérard Grisey Pupils of Martin Bresnick 21st-century American male musicians