Robert Nathan Sheff
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Robert Nathan Sheff
Robert Nathan Sheff (January 1, 1945 – December 12, 2020), known professionally as "Blue" Gene Tyranny, was an American avant-garde composer and pianist. "His memorable pseudonym, coined during his brief stint with Iggy and the Stooges, was derived partly from Jean, his adoptive mother’s middle name," wrote Steve Smith, in his ''New York Times'' obituary for Tyranny. "It also referred to what he called 'the tyranny of the genes' — a predisposition to being 'strongly overcome by emotion,' he said in ''Just for the Record: Conversations With and About ‘Blue’ Gene Tyranny'', a documentary film." Early life Tyranny was born Joseph Gantic in San Antonio on January 1, 1945, to William and Eleanor Gantic. Later that year, after his birth father, an Army paratrooper, went missing in the Asian theater of World War II, his mother put him up for adoption. He was adopted by Dorothy and Meyer Sheff of San Antonio, who changed his name to Robert Nathan Sheff. Tyranny was raised in ...
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San Antonio
San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 2.6 million people in the 2020 United States census. It is the most populous city in and the county seat of Bexar County. San Antonio is the seventh-most populous city in the United States, and the second-most populous in the Southern United States and Texas, after Houston. Founded as a Spanish mission and colonial outpost in 1718, the city in 1731 became the first chartered civil settlement in what is now present-day Texas. The area was then part of the Spanish Empire. From 1821 to 1836, it was part of the Mexican Republic. It is the oldest municipality in Texas, having celebrated its 300th anniversary on May 1, 2018. Straddling the regional divide between South and Central Texas, San Antonio anchors the southwe ...
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On The Other Ocean
''On the Other Ocean'' is the debut studio album by American composer David Behrman, released in 1978 by Lovely Music. Considered a pioneering work of computer music, the album pairs electronics controlled by a KIM-1 computer with live players. Background and recording "On the Other Ocean" was recorded on September 18, 1977, at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College in Oakland, California. "Figure in a Clearing" was recorded on June 9, 1977, at the Electronic Music Studio at the State University of New York at Albany in Albany, New York. Release The album was reissued by Lovely Music in 1996 on CD and again on vinyl on February 1, 2019. Music Andy Beta of ''Pitchfork'' explained: "New music composer David Behrman’s debut, ''On the Other Ocean'', is a riposte on how humans and computers can interface and interact to make a warm, heavenly sound. It marks Behrman’s first interactive piece between man, woman, and machine; flautist Maggi Payne and bassoonist Arthur ...
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Diabetes
Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of the body becoming unresponsive to insulin's effects. Classic symptoms include polydipsia (excessive thirst), polyuria (excessive urination), polyphagia (excessive hunger), weight loss, and blurred vision. If left untreated, the disease can lead to various health complications, including disorders of the cardiovascular system, eye, kidney, and nerves. Diabetes accounts for approximately 4.2 million deaths every year, with an estimated 1.5 million caused by either untreated or poorly treated diabetes. The major types of diabetes are type 1 and type 2. The most common treatment for type 1 is insulin replacement therapy (insulin injections), while anti-diabetic medications (such as metformin and semaglutide) and lifestyle modificatio ...
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Hospice
Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by reducing pain and suffering. Hospice care provides an alternative to therapies focused on life-prolonging measures that may be arduous, likely to cause more symptoms, or are not aligned with a person's goals. Hospice care in the United States is largely defined by the practices of the Medicare system and other health insurance providers, which cover inpatient or at-home hospice care for patients with terminal diseases who are estimated to live six months or less. Hospice care under the Medicare Hospice Benefit requires documentation from two physicians estimating a person has less than six months to live if the disease follows its usual course. Hospice benefits include access to a multidisciplinary treatment team specialized in end-of-l ...
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Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown. Feldman's works are characterized by notational innovations that he developed to create his characteristic sound: rhythms that seem to be free and floating, pitch shadings that seem softly unfocused, a generally quiet and slowly evolving music, and recurring asymmetric patterns. His later works, after 1977, also explore extremes of duration. Biography Morton Feldman was born in Woodside, Queens, New York City, on January 12, 1926. His parents, Irving and Frances Breskin Feldman, were Russian Jews who had emigrated to New York from Pereiaslav (Irving, in 1910) and Bobruysk (Frances, in 1901). His father was a manufacturer of children's coats. As a child he studied ...
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Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvisation often involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been compared to percussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase "eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's style. He has been referred to as " Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings". Early life and education Cecil Percival Taylor was born on March 25, 1929, in Long Island City, Queens, and raised in Corona, Queens. Ratliff, Ben (May 3, 2012)"Lessons From the Dean of the School of Improv" ''The New York Times''. Retrieved December 9, 2017: "I recently spoke with the 83-year-old improvising pianist Cecil Taylor for about five hours over two days. One day was at his three-story home in For ...
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Kyle Gann
Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American composer, professor of music, critic, analyst, and musicologist who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 to 2005) and other publications, he has supported progressive music, including such "downtown" movements as postminimalism and totalism. Biography Gann was born in 1955 and raised in a musical family. He began composing at the age of 13. After graduating in 1973 from Dallas's Skyline High School, he attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he obtained a B.Mus. in 1977, and Northwestern University, where he received his M.Mus. and D.Mus. in 1981 and 1983, respectively. As well as studying composition with Randolph Coleman at Oberlin, he also studied Renaissance counterpoint with Greg Proctor at the University of Texas at Austin. He studied composition primarily with Ben Johnston (1984–86) and Peter Gena (1977–81), and briefly ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as compact discs (CDs) replaced LP record, LPs and cassette (format), cassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he res ...
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Hsiung-Zee Wong
Hsiung-Zee Wong (born October 24, 1947) is a composer, artist, and designer who was born in Hong Kong. Biography Wong moved to the United States in 1966, where she worked as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. She studied at the University of Hawaii until 1968. In 1970, she studied electronic music at Mills College with Robert Sheff (later known as Gene Tyranny) and Dane Rudhyar. In 1972, she studied industrial design at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Other teachers included Ernst Krenek, Chou Wen-Chung, Leonard Klein and Robert Ashley Robert Reynolds Ashley (March 28, 1930 – March 3, 2014) was an American composer, who was best known for his television operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. His works often involve ....  In 1972, Wong presented an art exhibit entitled "A Celebration of Women" at the Intersection Gallery (probably Intersection for the Arts). Wong founded Hysteresis, a women ...
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Mills College
Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in 1871 and became the second Timeline of women's colleges in the United States#First and oldest, women's college west of the Rocky Mountains, Rockies. In 2022, it merged with Northeastern University. History Mills College was initially founded as the Young Ladies Seminary, Benicia, Young Ladies Seminary in the city of Benicia, California, Benicia in 1852 under the leadership of Mary Atkins, a graduate of Oberlin College. In 1865, Susan Tolman Mills, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College (then Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), and her husband, Cyrus Mills, bought the Young Ladies Seminary renaming it Mills Seminary. In 1871, the school was moved to its current location in Oakland, California. The school was municipal corporation, incorporate ...
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Opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libretto, librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, Theatrical scenery, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conducting, conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of Western culture#Music, Western classical music, and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an sung-through, entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include :Opera genres, numerous ...
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Perfect Lives
''Perfect Lives'' is a 1983 television opera in seven episodes (or acts) by American contemporary composer Robert Ashley, directed by John Sanborn. It was released on DVD in 2005, and a book of the libretto as well as an audio recording on cassette (1983) and CD (1991, reissued 2006, reissued 2020) in the U.S. Background and themes Among many varying descriptions of the work, Ashley once described ''Perfect Lives'' as a "comic opera about reincarnation". Ashley's biographer, Kyle Gann, meanwhile, has stated that it can be called a "performance novel", "if opera raises too many expectations". ''Perfect Lives'' has been described as consisting of "digressions about the US landscape and American lives, performed in American vernacular language". It audiovisually makes use of self-references, non-sequiturs, an eclectic, pop-based but minimalist approach to its musical structure (sculpted by "Blue" Gene Tyranny and Peter Gordon), and surreal and intertwined visual editing (often ...
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