Jacques-Louis Monod (25 February 1927 – 21 September 2020) was a French composer,

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

and conductor of

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and

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

music, particularly in the advancement of the music of

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; h ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...

and uptown music; and was active primarily in New York City and London during the second half of the twentieth century.

Biography

Paris 1940s: early years

Monod was born in Asnières (now

Asnières-sur-Seine Asnières-sur-Seine () is a Communes of France, commune in the Hauts-de-Seine Departments of France, department and Île-de-France Regions of France, region of north-central France. It lies on the left bank of the river Seine, some eight kilometr ...

), a northwestern suburb of Paris, to an affluent family of privilege and of French

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

affiliation with ancestral roots in French-speaking Switzerland His musical prowess was detected early when he enrolled in 1933 at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique as a

child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...

at the age of six, below the official minimum age of nine. Monod attended the Paris Conservatoire intermittently but remained registered for nearly 20 years, obtaining his Doctorat in 1952. Monod's teachers at the Conservatoire were Yves Nat and

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

; including master classes under the visiting conductor, Herbert von Karajan; he also studied with his godfather, Paul-Silva Hérard, the organist at Paris's St. Ambroise Church. A decisive turning point for Monod occurred in 1944 at the age of 17, when he took private lessons in composition and theory for five years, subsequently remaining a lifelong supporter and president of an association promoting the music of the French composer and conductor

René Leibowitz René Leibowitz (; ; 17 February 1913 – 29 August 1972) was a Polish and French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher. He was historically significant in promoting the music of the Second Viennese School in Paris after the Second Wo ...

, a

Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...

disciple and émigré from Warsaw, Poland (rumor has it that during the

German occupation of France The Military Administration in France (; ) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western France. This so-called ' was established in June 19 ...

, which lasted until December 1944, the young Monod surreptitiously brought food to Leibowitz, a member of the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

). Leibowitz, who was an outsider among the French musical establishment, and a major catalyst in the promotion of Schoenberg's music and in the subsequent development of serial music in Paris after WW II, became Monod's principal teacher and mentor within a circle of devoted pupils, including

Jean Prodromidès Jean Prodromidès (3 July 1927 – 17 March 2016) was a French composer. He was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1927 in a musical family. His father, who was of Greek origin, had a pianola by which Jean became familiar with works of Beethoven and Wagn ...

, Antoine Duhamel, Pierre Chan, Michel Philippot, Serge Nigg, André Casanova, Claude Helffer, and for a brief period,

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montb ...

. Monod's debut (1949) as a pianist took place in Paris at a concert organized by Leibowitz for Schoenberg's 75th birthday. His performance in the European premiere of Schoenberg's ''Phantasy for Violin and Piano Accompaniment'', Op. 47, missed being the world premiere by only a few hours (the world premiere took place in Los Angeles on 13 September 1949, with Leonard Stein on piano and Adolph Koldofsky on violin).

New York City 1950s

Pianist and the Dial recordings

Soon after Leibowitz's earliest travels to the United States (first in 1947 to visit Schoenberg in Los Angeles), Monod followed, accompanying Leibowitz to New York City in 1950. Whereas, the noted pianist Charles Rosen claims to have heard Monod perform Milton Babbitt's ''The Widow's Lament in Springtime'' as early as 1945 or 1946 at Princeton – and yet the work was not composed until 1951. At a time when the musics of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern were least performed in America, Monod was among their earliest champions. He spent much of the 1950s as a pianist, performing works of the Second Viennese School for piano and voice, similar to the careers of pianists E. Steuermann; P. Stadlen; C. Helffer; Paul Jacobs; the Viennese pianist, Karl Steiner; and the American pianist, L. Stein. Under the direction of Leibowitz, Monod performed and recorded the piano part of Berg's ''Chamber Concerto'' and Schoenberg's ''Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte'', Op. 41; and more importantly, Monod also performed on historic recordings of chamber music by Webern for the Dial Records label in the early 1950s (a label founded by Ross Russell, who also produced historic jazz recordings of Charlie Parker,

Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He wo ...

and

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...

), including the earliest recordings of Webern's

Symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

, Op. 21, conducted by Leibowitz with the Paris Chamber Orchestra; the

Concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The ...

for nine instruments, Op. 24; the Variations for Piano, Op. 27, performed by Monod; the Four Songs, Op. 12, performed by the American virtuosic soprano Bethany Beardslee with Monod on piano; and the Quartet for tenor saxophone, clarinet, violin, and piano, Op. 22. On 18 December 1950, Monod performed in a special concert of

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

's chamber music at Juilliard, featuring the American premiere of Berg's ''Two Songs'' with Beardslee. The duo also performed Berg's ''Seven Early Songs'' (1905–08) and ''Four Songs'', Op. 2 (1908–10). Monod also promoted other musics in addition to the music of the Second Viennese School on 24 January 1954, the ''Three Japanese Lyrics'', composed by

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

in 1912–13, received their

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) with Beardslee, soprano; the pianist

Russell Sherman Russell Sherman (March 25, 1930 – September 30, 2023) was an American classical pianist, educator and author. He performed internationally, known especially for playing the music of Beethoven and Liszt. Driven by a "lifelong battle to recons ...

; and a chamber ensemble conducted by Monod. Also evident during Monod's residency in the USA was his extraordinary analytical ability: while attending a Columbia graduate 20th-century-music seminar taught by the Varèse disciple

Chou Wen-chung Chou Wen-chung (; July 28, 1923 – October 25, 2019) was a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States and received his music training at the New England Conservatory and Columbia Univ ...

, Monod's cogent analysis of Varèse's ''Ionisation'' led to his teaching the remainder of the course. Monod's studies at Columbia University during the 1950s would eventually lead by the early 1970s to an Associate Professorship position at Columbia's music department, wherein Monod with the former Schoenberg pupil and specialist in medieval music theory, Patricia Carpenter, were instrumental in establishing the department's undergraduate and graduate core curricula.

Conductor of Webern and influence on New York serialism

Beginning in the early 1950s and concurrently at the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany wherein the music of

was performed and promoted among the "new" avant-garde, Monod instead focused not on the emerging European avant-garde movement with the music of Webern as their model, but on the significance of Webern's music following the death of Schoenberg (1951) with growing interest among the northeast American academia. Monod directed American premieres of many works of Webern, assisting Richard Franko Goldman (of Goldman Band notoriety) in directing the first all-Webern concert in the USA (and the first all-Webern concert in Paris during 1951, according to liner notes from a 1976 CRI LP), which took place in New York City on 8 May 1951, and included the world premiere of Webern's ''Five Canons on Latin Texts''. On 16 March 1952, Monod gave the world premieres of Webern's ''Three Traditional Rhymes'', Op. 17, and the ''Three Songs on Poems of Hildegard Jone'', Op. 25, all with his then wife, Bethany Beardslee, with whom for years, they gave critically acclaimed concerts of new music with the Camera Concerts under Monod's directorship. Further, Beardslee wrote in her autobiography of another all-Webern concert given on December 28, 1952 at Kaufmann Concert Hall, located at New York City's

92nd Street Y 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a cultural and community center located in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the corner of East 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Founded in 1874 as the You ...

on Lexington Avenue with

and

Robert Craft Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. ...

present. Hermann Scherchen (with an introduction by Pierre Boulez) premiered Edgard Varèse's ''

Déserts ''Déserts'' (1950–1954) is a musical composition, piece by Edgard Varèse for 14 winds (brass instrument, brass and woodwind instrument, woodwinds), 5 percussion players, 1 piano, and electronic audiotape, tape."Blue" Gene Tyranny (2010). " E. Wellesz, E. Stein. Walter Goehr">W. Goehr, R. Gerhard, T. W. Adorno, Karl Rankl">K. Rankl, L. Spinner, E. Cross, P. Stadlen, E. Spira, etc.). In 1960–67, "during his seven years as the conductor for the BBC Third Program, he [i.e. Monod] presented a live concert broadcast of new music every Tuesday throughout the concert season. Each program was different and was broadcast internationally to a wide listening audience ... [Monod] has conducted major orchestras and chamber ensembles in Europe, Scandinavia, and North and Central America" (Equinox Music CD 0101 Liner Notes). A notable performance took place on Tuesday evening, 21 December 1965 with Monod conducting the British premiere of

Kurt Weill Kurt Julian Weill (; ; March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for hi ...

's school opera composed in 1930, ''

Der Jasager ' (literally ''The Yes Sayer''; also translated as ''The Affirmer'' or ''He Said Yes'') is an opera (specifically a '' Schuloper'' or "school-opera") by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht (after Elisabeth Hauptmann's translation f ...

'', based on a libretto by

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

and after a Japanese Noh-play, as reported by David Drew.

New York City 1970s–1990s

In 1975 he founded, and for 20 years served as president of the Guild of Composers, a New York-based group that produced concerts of "uptown"

contemporary music Contemporary music is whatever music is produced at the current time. Specifically, it could refer to: Genres or audiences * Adult contemporary music * British contemporary R&B * Christian adult contemporary * Christian contemporary hit radio * Con ...

. At the Guild of Composers concerts, which often took place at Columbia University's Miller Theater, performances included the music of Elliott Carter, Arthur Berger, Claudio Spies, Mario Davidovsky, Seymour Shifrin,

Earl Kim Earl Kim (1920–1998; né Eul Kim) was an American composer, and music pedagogue. He was of Korean descent. Early life, education, and training Kim was born on January 6, 1920, in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began pia ...

Donald Martino Donald James Martino (May 16, 1931 – December 8, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer. Biography Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Martino attended Plainfield High School. He began as a clarinetist, playing jazz for fun and ...

, George Edwards, Robert Helps,

David Lewin David Benjamin Lewin (July 2, 1933 – May 5, 2003) was an American music theorist, music critic and composer. Called "the most original and far-ranging theorist of his generation", he did his most influential theoretical work on the development ...

Fred Lerdahl Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl (born March 10, 1943) is an American music theorist and composer. Best known for his work on musical grammar, Music cognition, cognition, Rhythm, rhythmic theory, and pitch space, he and the linguist Ray Jackendoff d ...

; and

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music. Biography ...

, who composed an earlier work, ''Du'', dedicated to Monod and Ms. Beardslee. From 1995 until 2000, concerts of the Guild of Composers were directed by the Monod protégé, the Princeton- and Columbia-educated American composer and conductor, Daniel Plante. https://music.columbia.edu/news/jacques-louis-monod-1927-2020 Monod was a major proponent in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

of "non-experimental" serialism, promoting the music of American composers primarily from the Northeast academic elite, Columbia-Princeton "axis" (and to a lesser degree from Harvard) at the Guild of Composers concerts. The music performed for 25 years at the Guild of Composers concerts exemplified an ideological view that contemporary American music remains very much a part of the Western polyphonic tradition. Throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s, Monod also continued to perform the music of Schoenberg in New York City, leading the music critic Allan Kozinn to write an article published in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' acknowledging Monod as the "Guardian of the Schoenberg Flame", wherein Monod is quoted to have stated the following concerning his conducting demands: His promotion of Schoenberg include a notable performance in the early 1980s of Schoenberg's '' Pierrot lunaire'', Op. 21, with commentary by

George Perle George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theory, music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonality, atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. Th ...

Death

Monod died on 21 September 2020 in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

, France at the age of 93.

Music

List of compositions

Monod's music is published by the Jerona Music Corporation and Schott Music Publishing. A partial list of Monod's compositions include works from the series, ''Cantus Contra Cantum'': * Organ Piece (undated) * ''Chamber Aria'' (1952) (or the ''Passacaglia'') * ''Cantus Contra Cantum I'' (1968/1980) for Soprano and Chamber Orchestra * ''Cantus Contra Cantum II'' (1973) for Violin and Cello * ''Cantus Contra Cantum III'' (1976) for Chorus (a Piano reduction exists) * ''Cantus Contra Cantum IV (Tränen des Vaterlandes—Anno 1636)'' (1978) for Mixed Chorus and

Sackbut A sackbut is an early form of the trombone used during the Renaissance music, Renaissance and Baroque music, Baroque eras. A sackbut has the characteristic telescopic slide of a trombone, used to vary the length of the tube to change Pitch (m ...

s or Trombones * ''Cantus Contra Cantum V'' for Orchestra * ''Cantus Contra Cantum VI'' for Mixed Choir and Chamber Orchestra * ''2 Elegies'' (1978) (incl. ''Canonic Vocalise'', 1978)

Style and ideology

There are three phases of development in Monod's oeuvre: first, his initial education in Paris during the 1930s and 1940s, bearing distinctively French influences and characteristics as to his role in the origins of serialism in France (e.g., extensive training at the Paris Conservatoire, including studies under Messiaen and later, private studies under Leibowitz); followed by his relocation abroad during the 1950s and 1960s to NYC and London as a pianist and conductor of the New Music, with the advancement of music by composers of non-French origins, particularly American music (e.g., C. Ives, E. Carter, M. Babbitt and S. Shifrin) and the music of Schoenberg, Webern and the serial movement (e.g., A. Berg, A. Webern, R. Gerhard, E. I. Kahn, L. Spinner, E. Krenek, L. Nono, et al.), including the music of a fellow émigré, Varèse; and thirdly, his own musical legacy as a composer and pedagogue at music schools in the Northeast during the 1970s and 1980s, primarily at Columbia University and at the Guild of Composers concerts with the advancement of a post-Schoenbergian generation of "non-experimental" polyphonic music by American composers—many who were directly associated with Monod.

''Cantus Contra Cantum'' and advanced polyphony

Monod's music is based upon historical precedents of Webern's music and represents the French school of post-WWII serialism, combined with subtle lyricism. Among his early works, only the Chamber Aria (or the Passacaglia) from 1952 has been published. His doctoral dissertation – a second doctorate – was completed with distinction at Columbia in 1975 and assisted by the Princeton- and Columbia educated pianist-composer and a Babbitt-Monod disciple, Thomas S. James, consisting of a detailed exposition on the compositional premise of his seminal work, ''Cantus Contra Cantum II'' for Violin and Cello: music which represents a tour de force in rhythmic and serial complexity. It is dedicated to the violinist Rose Mary Harbison, wife of the composer John Harbison. Monod's music has been performed sparingly and has yet to be fully recognized. As in the music of Webern, there are no extraneous musical elements nor is there any degree of fortuitousness in Monod's rigorously composed music, which gives the discerning listener a means to distinguish musical relationships with aesthetically compelling results. The strict formal characteristics of his non-experimental and non-improvisational, highly controlled music requires superior technical abilities on the part of performers. Moreover, the overly-mechanical and superficial aspects exhibited in some earlier works of integral or total serialism are entirely absent and circumvented in Monod's music; which as a result, provides listeners with lyrical attributes. Monod has set many of his works to texts by French poets, such as Éluard, Valéry, Renard and René Char. The title for his extensive cycle of serial compositions composed during the course of the past forty years, namely "Cantus Contra Cantum", refers to the late-medieval concept of "line against line" as a progression beyond "punctus contra punctum", i.e., creating advanced music that is correlated to the development of modern Western polyphony: "music-synergy", wherein the interaction of two or more parts or voices in each work creates a combined effect that is greater than the sum of their individual effects. Monod's music is the subject of a doctoral study by New York-based composer Manuel Sosa's 2002 DMA dissertation for Juilliard, entitled, "Jacques-Louis Monod's Cantus Contra Cantum III : a preliminary inquiry". In 1979, the ISCM in New York City performed his ''Cantus Contra Cantum I'' for soprano and chamber orchestra, the first of a series of works that realizes Monod's advancement of a polyphonic "langue". Other than his editorial work, Monod has written sparingly on his own works and music of other composers. The few available writings by Monod are liner notes from a 2010 New World Records reissue (NWCRL358) of a 1972 recording of his ''Cantus Contra Cantum I'': More recent performances took place in New York City during February 1987 and in March 1989 of his provocative, "Tränen des Vaterlandes—Anno 1636" (''Cantus Contra Cantum IV''), a four-minute choral work accompanied by "sackbuts", based upon "a gruesome poetic depiction of carnage and devastation by Andreas Gryphius ... he music isstark but appropriate for the horrors described"; and his two a capella works, ''Elergies'', evoking "the ghost of Anton Webern ... music as exquisitely beautiful as any this listener has heard in some time". And nearly thirty years later on March 3, 2017, the Association for the Promotion of New Music devoted an evening of music to Monod with a choral concert in New York City that included compositions written over the last 40 years.

Editor of Schoenberg, Webern and Ives

Monod also edited numerous works for publication at Mobart Music Publications/Boelke-Bomart, Inc. (now part of Jerona Music Corp.), founded by Walter Boelke and initially edited by a Webern pupil, Kurt List; and Schott Music Publishing. These scores include

' ''Central Park in the Dark'', ''Hallowe'en'' and ''The Pond''; and Schoenberg's ''Kol nidre'', Op. 39 and the ''Three Songs'', Op. 48; and two works that are arguably among Schoenberg's greatest works from his late period, namely the ''String Trio'', Op. 45, and '' A Survivor from Warsaw'', Op. 46; and Webern's ''Quintet for Strings and Piano''. Monod's editions of Schoenberg's music have been described as the standard by which other ditionsare to be judged. In 1983, Monod edited and published at Mobart, "René Leibowitz 1913–1972. A Register of His Works and Writings".

Monod papers at Stanford

In 2013, Monod deposited a collection of his letters, music manuscripts and analyses, theoretical writings, etc. dating from 1952 until 1982 to the Green Library at Stanford University in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California. Included are letters with the Schoenberg family, René Leibowitz, Elliot Carter, Milton Babbitt, Michel Philippot, et al. More recently, Monod deposited an additional voluminous collection of musical scores, letters, etc. to Stanford, as reported in an October 13, 2017, online blog by the head Librarian of their Music Division, Jerry L. McBride, the former archivist at the Schoenberg Institute at USC. McBride writes: "In 2016 and 2017, many manuscript scores of Monod's own compositions were added to the collection dating from 1967 to the present, as he continues to compose new works."

Teacher at Columbia and Juilliard

Over the years, Monod had given private lessons to talented musicians, including those influenced by mathematics and the computer sciences: many occupy various professional positions in the US and abroad in the areas of conducting, composition, and theory. Although a compilation of Monod's students haven't yet been written, details on his many students can be found throughout the Internet. He taught primarily in New York City at Columbia and at the Juilliard School with guest lectureships at Princeton, Harvard and Brandeis. Monod also taught conducting to many who have specialized in this profession, including Peter Schubert, Michael Alexander Willens, Gilbert Levine, Markand Thakar, Joel Eric Suben, Peter Frewen, Rachael Worby, David Leibowitz, Richard Fletcher, et al.

Association for the Promotion of New Music

In 1975, in addition to the Guild of Composers concerts, Monod established a new music publishing firm, the Association for the Promotion of New Music (APNM), consisting of many works representative of the New York "uptown" movement and beyond. Monod, Mario Davidovsky, and Fred Lerdahl are Honorary Members of the Board with many former pupils of Monod's serving on the Board of Directors. Notable works include music performed at the Guild of Composers concerts and music of

Eduard Steuermann Eduard Steuermann (June 18, 1892, Sambor, Austria-Hungary – November 11, 1964, New York City) was an Austrian-born American pianist and composer. Steuermann studied piano with Vilém Kurz at the Lemberg Conservatory and Ferruccio Busoni in ...

Roger Sessions Roger Huntington Sessions (December 28, 1896March 16, 1985) was an American composer, teacher, and writer on music. He had started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved towards complex harmonies and postromanticism, a ...

, Edward T. Cone, Arthur Berger, Godfrey Winham, Will Ogdon, Ursula Mamlok, Rolv Yttrehus, George Edwards, Philip Batstone, Robert Ceely, Mark Hagerty, et al. Monod has also edited music for APNM, including Godfrey Winham's ''Composition for Orchestra'' and Stephen Peles' ''Intermezzo'' for solo piano.

Personal life and close associates

Monod was previously married to the soprano Bethany Beardslee; and later, to a translator of German descent, Margrit Auhagen. His closest associates in America include the composers Earl Kim, Seymour Shifrin, Arthur Berger, Mario Davidovsky, Claudio Spies, and Malcolm Peyton; and in France, Michel Philippot. Monod resided in Toulouse in the south of France.

Notable relatives

Monod was descended from one of the oldest families of the French (but of Swiss origin) Protestant bourgeoisie with a history since the

Napoleonic era The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and history of Europe, Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly (French Revoluti ...

of wide-ranging influences in French government, theology, the sciences and medicine with two Nobel laureates, banking and the arts. His great-great-grandfather Adolphe Monod was a noted pastor and theologian. His father Pierre Monod was a noted surgeon. His cousins include the naturalist Théodore Monod; the industrialist-politician

Jérôme Monod Jérôme Monod (7 September 1930 – 18 August 2016) was a French business executive and political advisor. He was the chairman of Lyonnaise des eaux, later known as Suez-Lyonnaise, from 1980 to 2000. He was an advisor to President Jacques Chirac ...

; Jacques Lucien Monod, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist; the pharmacologist Daniel Bovet, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine; and the

French New Wave The New Wave (, ), also called the French New Wave, is a French European art cinema, art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentat ...

film director

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...

References

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

Association for the Promotion of New MusicReview by Robert G. Kopelson in The Harvard Crimson: Jacques-Louis Monod and Chamber Ensemble
by

John Rockwell John Sargent Rockwell (born September 16, 1940) is an American music critic, dance critic and arts administrator. According to ''Grove Music Online'', "Rockwell brings two signal attributes to his critical work: a genuine admiration for all ki ...

, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', March 25, 1985
Boelke-Bomart, Inc./Jerona Music Corporation Website
by Paul Griffiths, ''

'', November 12, 1999
"Concert: New-Music Ensemble"
by Tim Page, ''

'', February 26, 1984
Citation by Jeni Dahmus on the Juilliard Concert of Berg's chamber music with Jacques-Louis Monod and Bethany Beardslee
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Monod, Jacques-Louis 1927 births 2020 deaths People from Asnières-sur-Seine French emigrants to the United States 21st-century French classical composers Modernist composers French male classical composers 20th-century French male musicians 21st-century French male musicians