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Newband
Newband is a contemporary music ensemble devoted to the performance of microtonal music. The group was founded in 1977 by musicians Stefani Starin and Dean Drummond. As a youth, Drummond performed with maverick composer Harry Partch in a unique ensemble of microtonal instruments that Partch designed and built himself; Drummond performed in the premieres of Partch’s ''Daphne of the Dunes'', ''And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma'', and ''Delusion of the Fury'', as well as on both Partch Columbia Masterworks recordings made during the late 1960s. Inspired by Partch's example, Drummond began to invent instruments of his own, creating the "zoomoozophone" and "juststrokerods," metal instruments tuned to subsets of Harry Partch's 43-tone microtonal scale. After Partch's death in 1974, Partch's instruments had fallen into disuse and disrepair, being used only occasionally for revivals of Partch's compositions. In 1990, Drummond acquired all of Partch's instruments for Newban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Brown (composer And Performer)
Elizabeth Brown (born 1953) is an American contemporary composer and performer, known for music described as otherworldly, which employs microtonal expression, unique instrumentation and a morphing, freewheeling language.Gann, Kyle. "American Composer: Elizabeth Brown," ''Chamber Music'', April 2002, p. 18–9.Kozinn, Allan"Zany New Music, But Quirkily Compelling,"''The New York Times'', May 14, 2003. Retrieved November 5, 2020.Clements, Dominy''MusicWeb International'', August 2013. Retrieved November 5, 2020. Her work is frequently commissioned for specific ensembles (e.g., Newband, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra)Powers, Ann"A Generous, Friendly Dose of Experimentalism,"''The New York Times'', November 3, 2001, p. 16. Retrieved November 5, 2020.Keedle, Jayne. "A Musical Democracy: Orpheus Chamber Orchestra premieres the ''Lost Waltz''," ''The Hartford Advocate'', November 13, 1997. and has been performed internationally in solo, chamber and orchestral contexts at venues including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dean Drummond
Dean Drummond (January 22, 1949 – April 13, 2013) was an American composer, arranger, conductor and musician. His music featured microtonality, electronics, and a variety of percussion. He invented a 31-tone instrument called the zoomoozophone in 1978. From 1990 to his death he was the conservator of the Harry Partch instrumentarium. Biography Born in Los Angeles, Drummond studied trumpet and composition at the University of Southern California and California Institute of the Arts. He studied trumpet with Don Ellis and John Clyman, and studied composition with Leonard Stein. Drummond then worked as a musician for and assistant to the maverick composer and instrument builder Harry Partch. He performed in the premieres of Partch’s large-scale works ''Daphne of the Dunes'', ''And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma'', and ''Delusion of the Fury''. Drummond also participated in recordings made by Partch for the Columbia Masterworks label in the late 1960s. In 1976, Dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Pugliese
James Pugliese (born Newark, New Jersey, 1952) is an American percussionist, drummer, composer and international recording artist on over 150 CDs of experimental, jazz and rock music. His performing experience is diverse. As a freelance percussionist he is in much demand and has performed with The New York Philharmonic Horizon Series (guest artist), New York City Ballet and soloist or performer on numerous new music and jazz festivals in Europe, Japan and the USA Jim grew up listening to and playing soul music and rhythm and blues. He went on to study percussion with Raymond Des Roches and by the age of eighteen he had recorded the music of Edgar Varese and Charles Wuorinen for Nonsuch Records. He continued performing and or recording new music with John Cage, Lukas Foss, Kent Nagano and Philip Glass. He spent twelve years as a member of Dean Drummond’s Newband and The Harry Partch Ensemble, studying and performing microtonal music. During this same period he developed an int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Partch
Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales, alongside Lou Harrison. He built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described the method behind his theory and practice in his book '' Genesis of a Music'' (1947). Partch composed with scales dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones derived from the natural harmonic series; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in standard Western tuning, which uses twelve equal intervals to the octave. To play his music, Partch built many unique instruments, with such names as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl. Partch described his music as corporeal, and distinguished it from a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan La Barbara
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 with advancing a new vocabulary of vocal sounds including trills, whispers, cries, sighs, inhaled tones, and multiphonics (singing two or more pitches simultaneously). Biography An influential figure in experimental music, La Barbara was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a classically trained singer who studied with soprano Helen Boatwright at Syracuse University and contralto Marion Freschl at the Juilliard School in New York. Joan La Barbara's early creative work (early to mid 1970s) focuses on experimentation and investigation of vocal sound as raw sonic material including works that explore varied timbres on a single pitch, circular breathing techniques inspired by horn players, and multiphonic or chordal singing. In the mid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contemporary 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 serial music, electronic music, experimental music, and minimalist music. Newer forms of music include spectral music, and post-minimalism. History Background At the beginning of the twentieth century, composers of classical music were experimenting with an increasingly dissonant pitch language, which sometimes yielded atonal pieces. Following World War I, as a backlash against what they saw as the increasingly exaggerated gestures and formlessness of late Romanticism, certain composers adopted a neoclassic style, which sought to recapture the balanced forms and clearly perceptible thematic processes of earlier styles (see also New Objectivity and Social Realism). After World War II, modernist composers sought to achieve greater ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock". Her work '' Anthracite Fields'', an oratorio for chorus and instruments, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. She has also received the Herb Alpert Award (2015) and was named a MacArthur Fellow (2016). Life Born in Philadelphia, Wolfe has a twin brother and an older brother. As a teenager, she learned piano but she only began to study music seriously after taking a musicianship class at the University of Michigan, where she received a BA in music and theater as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1982. In her early twenties, Wolfe wrote music for an all-female theatre troupe. On a trip to New York, she became friends with composition students Michael ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contemporary Classical Music Ensembles
Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is one of the three major subsets of modern history, alongside the early modern period and the late modern period. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related to, the rise of postmodernity. Contemporary history is politically dominated by the Cold War (1947–1991) between the Western Bloc, led by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc, led by the Soviet Union. The confrontation spurred fears of a nuclear war. An all-out "hot" war was avoided, but both sides intervened in the internal politics of smaller nations in their bid for global influence and via proxy wars. The Cold War ultimately ended with the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The latter stages and aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", " Blue Monk", " Straight, No Chaser", " Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. Monk's compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations. Monk's distinct look included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He also had an idiosyncratic habit during performances: while other musicians continued playing, Monk would stop, stand up, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition ''4′33″'', which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montclair State University
Montclair State University (MSU) is a public research university in Montclair, New Jersey, with parts of the campus extending into Little Falls. As of fall 2018, Montclair State was, by enrollment, the second largest public university in New Jersey. As of November 2021, there were 21,005 total enrolled students: 16,374 undergraduate students and 4,631 graduate students. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". The campus covers approximately . The university offers more than 300 majors, minors, and concentrations. History Plans for the State Normal school were initiated in 1903, and required a year for the State of New Jersey to grant permission to build the school. It was then established as New Jersey State Normal School at Montclair, a normal school, in 1908 approximately 5 years after the initial planning of the school. At the time, Governor John Franklin Fort attended the dedication of the school in 1908, and the school was to have i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Instruments
An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a power amplifier which drives a loudspeaker, creating the sound heard by the performer and listener. An electronic instrument might include a user interface for controlling its sound, often by adjusting the pitch, frequency, or duration of each note. A common user interface is the musical keyboard, which functions similarly to the keyboard on an acoustic piano, except that with an electronic keyboard, the keyboard itself does not make any sound. An electronic keyboard sends a signal to a synth module, computer or other electronic or digital sound generator, which then creates a sound. However, it is increasingly common to separate user interface and sound-generating functions into a music controller (input device) and a music synthesize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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