Gregg Wager (born September 16, 1958 in

Adrian, Michigan Adrian is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Lenawee County. The population was 20,645 at the 2020 census. Adrian lies in Michigan's 7th congressional district. History Adrian was founded on June 18, 1826 by Addison Co ...

) 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 Defi ...

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

, and

music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...

. He studied

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 ...

at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

and 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 ...

. His teachers included

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 ...

and

Morten Lauridsen Morten Johannes Lauridsen (born February 27, 1943) is an American composer. A National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001, and is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus ...

. His piano teachers included Yuriy Oliynyk, Doris Stevenson, and Chester Swiatkowski. In 1996, he earned a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

at the

Free University Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in poli ...

. As a critic, he specializes in

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 ...

and

postmodern music Postmodern music is music in the art music tradition produced in the postmodern era. It also describes any music that follows aesthetical and philosophical trends of postmodernism. As an aesthetic movement it was formed partly in reaction to mo ...

. From 1985 to 1991, he contributed regularly to the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

''. In a 2001 article for 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 ...

, "Going the Way of the Victrola," Wager advocated for the

P2P P2P may refer to: * Pay to play, where money is exchanged for services * Peer-to-peer, a distributed application architecture in computing or networking ** List of P2P protocols * Phenylacetone, an organic compound commonly known as P2P * Poin ...

community and the fall of the importance of the recording studio. Wager's musical influences vary from traditional forms of American and

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

, and even

serialism In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...

. He especially is influenced by

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 ...

and the relationships between pitch and

tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...

and

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 recu ...

. After serving as an adjunct professor at

Purchase College Purchasing is the process a business or organization uses to acquire goods or services to accomplish its goals. Although there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between ...

and for a year as a guest lecturer at the

Korea National University of Arts Korea National University of Arts is a national university in Seoul, South Korea. Korea National University of Arts was established in 1993 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea as the only national university of arts with an a ...

, in 2008 he enrolled in law school after not finding more permanent teaching positions. He earned a JD at

McGeorge School of Law University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law is a private, American Bar Association (ABA)-approved law school in the Oak Park neighborhood of the city of Sacramento, California. It is part of the University of the Pacific and is located on t ...

in 2014.Gregg Wager.
Statement to United States Copyright Office
2014

Books

*''Symbolism as a Compositional Method in the Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen'' (1998).

Publications (selective list)

*"Symbolische Aspekte der Formel-Komposition." ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik''. No. 4, Jul./Aug. 2003: 42-4. *"Going the Way of the Victrola." ''New York Times''. Vol. 150, No. 51,661, 11 Feb. 2001: Sec. 2, 32+. *"Tracing the Origins of Alabama Song: A look at the meaning of a song by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as interpreted by The Doors." ''Doors Collectors Magazine''. Ed. Kerry Humphreys. Apr.-Oct. 1996: 15-20. *"A Composer's 'Aura': The Musical Language of York Höller." ''Chicago Symphonic Times''. Ed. John Henken. Fall 1995: 4-7. *"Improvisational Tribute to Longo Works." ''Los Angeles Times''. 8 Nov. 1989: F8. *"A 'White Rose' Blooms From Troubled Earth." ''Los Angeles Times''. 6 Nov. 1988, Sunday Calendar: 60+. *"Post-Modern Music: 'Condominium of Babel.' " ''Los Angeles Times''. 13 Feb. 1988, part VI: 5+. *"Land Grab." ''L. A. Weekly''. 11–17 July 1986: 16. *"New Music America '85 Comes to L.A." ''Los Angeles Times''. 27 Oct. 1985, Sunday Calendar: 50+.

Musical Compositions (selective list)

*Piano Sonata #2 (2004-5) *''Astralis'' for guitar and orchestra (1992–99) *String Quartet #2 (1993) *''In Space and Time'' for 27 players (1984–87) *''Adjacent Lines and Equal Parts'' for solo piano (1985) *''Image and Process'' for chamber orchestra (1982) *Piano Sonata #1 (1981) *String Quartet #1 (1979) *24 Two-Part Inventions (1977)

Discography

*''Adjacent Lines and Equal Parts,'' Menschenfreund Records. MF001 (1985).

References

External links

Gregg Wager’s homepage

Listening

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wager, Gregg 1958 births Living people American male composers 21st-century American composers American music critics American music journalists Writers from New York (state) People from Adrian, Michigan 21st-century American male musicians