Alden Jenks (born August 10, 1940) 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 ...

Biography

Alden Jenks was born in

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

and received a B.A. from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

and an M.A. from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. He studied composition with

Lawrence Moss Lawrence Kenneth Moss (November 18, 1927 – June 24, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was born in Los Angeles. He held a B.A. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, an M.A. from the Eastman Schoo ...

Andrew Imbrie Andrew Welsh Imbrie (April 6, 1921 – December 5, 2007) was an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist. Career Imbrie was born in New York City and began his musical training as a pianist when he was 4. In 1937, he went to Par ...

and Seymour Shifrin. He also studied composition in 1967 with

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 ...

at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, and

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

with

David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefa ...

and Anthony Gnazzo. As a performer, he served as a controller of the live electronics for Stockhausen's 1967 Darmstadt collective-composition project, ''Ensemble'', and performed on

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

in the 25th anniversary concert of

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist music, minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notab ...

's ''

In C ''In C'' is a composition by Terry Riley from 1964. It is one of the most successful works by an American composer and a seminal example of minimal music, minimalism. The score directs any number of musicians to repeat a series of 53 melodic fr ...

'' in 1989, released as a recording in 1995 on New Albion Records CD NA071. As a composer he is primarily known for his work in electronic media, and is Professor of Composition and Director of the E. L. Wiegand Composition Studio at the San Francisco Conservatory.

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before Presidency of John Adams, his presidency, he was a leader of ...

has cited him as an influential colleague, crediting Jenks with introducing him to Wagner His composition ''Nagasaki'' won the

Bourges Bourges ( ; ; ''Borges'' in Berrichon) is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre (Cher), Yèvre. It is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Cher (department), Cher, and also was the capital city of the former provin ...

Electronic Music Competition, and ''Marrying Music'' won the Viotti-Valsesia International Music Competition award.

Compositions (selective list)

*''Nagasaki'', electronic music (1983) awarded a prize at the Bourges Festival in 1983 *''Those Long Canadian Winters'', theatre music *''Mummermusic'', music for a mime act by Peter Kors (1974) *''Ansichtskarte an Johann'', for two pianos (1978/83) *''Marrying Music'', for two pianos (1978/83) Winner of "Diploma and Medal" in the Viotti-Valsesia International Music Competition *''Femme Fatale: The Invention of Personality'', incidental music for the play by Laura Farabough (1981) *''Calcululations'', MIDI composition (1990) *''MENAGE'', for synthesizer, piano, and percussion (1994) *"Letter from Linda" (1998–99) *''Martin Put That Gun Away'', electroacoustic music (2000) *''Ognaggio al'Anzzonio'', electroacoustic music (2003) *''Sour Music'' (2003) *"Prelude", for organ (2003) *"Ghost Songs" (2004) *"Five California Songs" on texts by

Richard Brautigan Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. He wrote throughout his life and published ten novels, two collections of short stories, and four books of poetry. Brautigan's work has been publi ...

Robert Hass Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book AwardLeonard Nathan, and

Philip Whalen Philip Glenn Whalen (October 20, 1923 – June 26, 2002) was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation. Biography Born in Portland, Oregon, Whalen grew up in The Dalles f ...

for tenor, cello, and piano (2006) *"The Soup" (2008/09) *"Tokyo Crow" (2009) *"Unrestful Sleep", piano solo (2011) *"Hammered", piano and computer (2013) *"Oh, It's You", soprano and electronics (2013)

References

Sources * * *

External links

Alden Jenks’s website.
2011-02-04)
San Francisco Conservatory biography pageSan Francisco Conservatory of Music Oral History Interview with Alden Jenks
Living people 20th-century American classical composers 21st-century American classical composers American male classical composers 1940 births Pupils of Karlheinz Stockhausen Yale University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Davis alumni San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty Classical musicians from California Classical musicians from Michigan 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians {{US-composer-20thC-stub