Richard Bunger Evans

Richard Bunger Evans, also known as Richard Bunger and Richard B. Evans, (born 1942) is an American composer and pianist who worked with John Cage and subsequently wrote "the classic book on John Cage,"American Composers Forum. Member Bio
''William C. Harrington''
Retrieved on July 1, 2009. ''The Well-Prepared Piano'' (1973). Evans has performed widely in the US and Europe, as well as composed music for opera and musical theatre, piano, art songs, prepared piano, choral music, string orchestra, chamber music, and he is especially respected as a collaborator with singers. He continues to compose and perform in these various genres. In commemoration of Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising, Evans composed ''Ireland's Poet-Patriots,'' an oratorio that premiered at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Evans also contributed music to the Ken Burns documentary miniseries, ''The American Revolution'' (2025). During his 17-year career as a music professor, Evans pioneered the country's first Electronic Music & Recording program and was named one of two statewide Outstanding Professors of 1981–1982 in the 23-campus California State University system.

Early life

Richard Bunger Evans was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1942 to Dr. Jean Scholler, later a research pharmacologist on the faculty of Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin, and John Herbert Evans, an entrepreneur in New York City. In 1944, he was adopted by Henry and Minnie Bunger of Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania, and attended public schools there until his graduation in 1960 (except for his time as a Capitol Page in the US House of Representatives). He began studying piano at age five, clarinet at seven, and pipe organ at fifteen.

Career

Evans studied at Lafayette College and Oberlin College where he obtained a B.Mus. in 1964. Evans continued at the University of Illinois and earned a master's degree in music in 1966, with further study at the University of Kentucky. During his post-graduate studies, he taught at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina. One of his students at Queens was composer Betty Rose Wishart. In 1968 Evans accepted a position at Oberlin Conservatory to teach music theory. He then moved to Los Angeles, California where he worked as a jazz pianist, and in 1970 accepted a professorship at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). Here he founded and directed the Electronic Music & Recording Program (EM&R), a groundbreaking interdisciplinary degree program among the departments of music, physics, and media. EM&R became a prototype for similar programs across the country. Many of his students entered the field professionally, including Marcus Ryle and Sig Knapstad. Evans was named Outstanding Professor 1981–1982 of the 23-campus California State University system,California State University
''Outstanding Professor Awards'', p. 22.
Retrieved on July 1, 2009. as well as wrote the music and contributed to the lyric for CSUDH's alma mater. Concurrently, he toured widely throughout the US and Europe as a concert pianist performing and proselytizing music by 20th century American composers.

''The Well-Prepared Piano,'' John Cage, and the avant-garde

While teaching at Queens University, Evans discovered and explored John Cage's work for prepared piano. In 1967, he met Cage at Winthrop College where they were both performing during a contemporary arts festival featuring Cage and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. A few years later, Cage asked Evans to edit some of his early manuscripts for publication as well as record them. Evans went on to perform and record a concert of avant-garde piano works by Cage—as well as Henri Lazarof, Barney Childs, and Charles Ives—that was released as an LP by Avant Records titled ''The Perilous Night'' (1973). In 1978, he recorded many of Cage’s theretofore unpublished works at Capitol Records including ''Four Walls,'' which was released after 1985 with Cage’s blessing. Cage had long considered these expressive pieces unrepresentative of his most influential avant-garde work, but complemented Evans’s recordings and approved of their release. Evans also released ''Prepared Piano: The First'' ''Four Decades'' (1983) with the Musical Heritage Society.

Evans's performances often included lecture-demonstrations on the physical well-being of the piano, to distinguish between safe and potentially harmful avant-garde performance techniques. He brought this expertise to ''The Well-Prepared Piano'' (1973), a treatise on piano techniques for new music composition and performance written and illustrated by Evans. Cage wrote the foreword to the book, which has been repeatedly referred to by avant-garde pianists as "the classic" in the field, and which was later published in Japanese by Zen-On Music Ltd. A new and updated edition of ''The Well-Prepared Piano'' will be released by Ailouros Editions in fall 2025.

The Bungerack

In 1973, Evans devised a way for pianists to hold their music while performing pieces that require the removal of the piano's traditional music stand. Evans called his invention the "Bungerack". Evans also invented a notational system called "Musiglyph" for notating unconventional piano compositions and vocal techniques. Evans was invited to join Nicolas Slonimsky, Dane Rudhyar, and others at the April 1973 music convocation called "The Expanded Ear," which culminated in the ''Six-Acre Jam—''a piece in which 60 musicians played at various positions among the trees on a mountain slope. In May 1973, Evans performed live in the radio studio for Charles Amirkhanian's Other Minds radio program; Evans played compositions from Cage, Henry Cowell, Harold Budd, and E. T. Paull, and a piano-and-electronic- tape duet by Morton Subotnick.

Concert pianist

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Evans toured North America and Europe in support of music by 20th century American composers. His concerts took him to college and university campuses, from Maine to San Diego, Toronto to Florida, as well as to Paris, Berlin, London, Oslo, and many venues between. He performed concerti as piano soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Denver Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, and the Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris. Alongside the Baltimore Symphony, Evans recorded ''AKWAN'' (Columbia Masterworks), a concerto he commissioned from composer Olly Wilson with a grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music.

A chronic illness forced Evans to largely leave the field of music. For his final public concert in 1982, Evans performed ''Four Walls,'' with Cage in the audience'','' at the Walker Art Center during a Festival celebrating Cage’s 70th birthday.

Composer

1960s to 1980s

While accompanying vocal students as an undergraduate at Oberlin, Evans became interested in art song and began composing in that genre. His love of vocal music grew into compositions for choirs, vocal ensembles, as well as ''Jiuta'', a style of traditional Japanese music that includes female “speech choir” with vocal solo, guitar, small drum, and recorder or shakuhachi. These have been performed widely in the US and Europe.

Evans's numerous compositions for prepared piano include ''hommage'' (1967), ''Three Bolts out of the Blues'' ''(''1976-77), ''Two Pieces for Prepared Piano'' (1977), as well as ''Money Music'' (1982)—a composition whose preparations include paper money and coins from various countries. While on concert tour, he recorded his compositions for piano and electronics for the BBC, Radio Oslo, ORTF, and RIAS/Radio Free Europe.

1990s to today

In 1990 Evans returned to music and added “Evans” as his surname. He began to compose in more traditional genres such as musical theatre, opera, pop songs, and oratorio. For the 1991 Grove Play titled ''Tyburn Fair'', Evans worked with a libretto from Bohemian Donald L. Winks to compose the oratorio, performed in July at the Bohemian Grove. In 1995 Evans composed and recorded the music for the two-hour opera,''The Rising: An Irish Allegory,'' an oratorio based on the poetic works of William Butler Yeats, Maude Gonne, and Padraic Pearse. For his next Grove Play in 2007, Evans wrote the music to a libretto by Mark Cleary titled ''Leprechaun''.

In May–June 1994, Evans was the musical director of ''A New York Romance'', a one-woman performance piece set in New York City, sung and acted by Mary Setrakian. In 2000, Evans released ''Midas & Marigold, A Family Opera'', featuring music by Evans and book and lyrics by 'vid Buttaro and Squire Fridell.

''Ireland's Poet-Patriots''

Evans’s “Irish Oratorio,” ''Ireland's Poet-Patriots: A Musical Tribute'', premiered in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral in 2016.  Commissioned by Ireland’s Consul General Philip Grant to commemorate the centenary of Ireland’s historic “Easter Rising” and her fight for independence from Britain, the concert is based on Evans’s musical settings of poetic and literary works by William Butler Yeats, Maude Gonne, and Padraic Pearse and other historical Irish writers. ''Ireland's Poet-Patriots'' was performed again in 2017 in Washington D.C.’s National Cathedral, produced by the Cathedral and Debra Wakefield, and conducted by Scott Tucker. Both productions featured Irish musicians Muireann nic Amhlaoibh, Christy O’Leary'','' Aimée Farrell-Courtney, and Derek Ryan; musicians and vocal soloists from the US; plus a 25-voice mixed choir, a chamber orchestra of 28, pipe organ, and piano. The six noted narrators in D.C. included author Chris Matthews, publisher Patricia Harty, and Ireland’s Ambassador to the US, the Hon. Daniel Mulhall. The live 2-CD recording and libretto were released by Seacastle Music.

Musicals

In 2001, Evans moved to New York City and was selected for membership in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. In the BMI Workshop, Evans began a musical partnership with bookwriter-lyricist Kate Hancock. Their first collaboration resulted in 2005's ''The Playboy of the Western World: An Irish Musical,'' which was adapted from John Millington Synge’s famous 1907 comedy. After a staged reading in Chicago, the ''Sun Times'' wrote "This show deserves a thriving future. Along with its ready-made tragicomic story and marvelous characters, it comes with a lovely lyrical score that very skillfully blends traditional Irish melodies and a Broadway sound."

In 2002 he composed the score for Thorstein Veblen's ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' to a libretto by Charles Leipart that was presented by the National Alliance for Musical Theatre; this was recreated as a vaudeville production by Stages 2006 in Chicago and staged at the Kansas City Ballet. The musical was later rewritten by the authors, retitled as ''Greed is Good'', and produced in 2010 by the 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa, California, under the direction of Nancy Prebilich.

In November 2004, Evans took part in a collaborative composition and performance work called "Raw Impressions Musical Theater #1", with eight other composers. In 2006 Evans was commissioned by the West Bay Opera to create ''Enchanted April: A Lyrical New Musical'' based on the 1922 novel ''The Enchanted April'' by Elizabeth von Arnim. Evans in turn commissioned Charles Leipart to write the book and lyrics. The initial industry presentations of ''Enchanted April—''directed by Annette Jolles and produced at the Chelsea Studios, New York, in March 2010—starred Rebecca Luker, Jill Paice, Robert Petkoff, and George Dvorsky. ''Enchanted April'' was further presented by the Pacific Coast Repertory Theatre in 2016, and workshopped at the Kennedy Center and Arena Stage in D.C., where it was directed by Robert Pullen and sponsored by Adrienne Arsht. It was staged again in 2017 by the San Diego State University Graduate Theatre Department and directed by Stephen Brotebeck.

On commission from the Cinnabar Theatre in California, Hancock and Evans continued their collaboration to create ''Coming Home: A Love Story'', inspired by two plays by James M. Barrie. It was premiered by the Cinnabar in 2011.

Evans’ other musicals as composer include: ''Midlife! The Users’ Guide'' (2006), a musical review with lyrics by Frank Evans and music and additional lyrics by R. Evans; ''The Golden Touch: A Family Musical'' (2001)'','' with book and lyrics by Maryrose Wood, commissioned and produced in NYC by the International Institute of Vocal Arts; and ''Hamlet's Big Holiday'' with bookwriter-lyricist Howard Guy Ervin.

His many compositions and musicals were further performed at Carnegie Hall, York Theatre, Irish Arts Center, Theatre at Riverside Church, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Public Library, Broadway Theatre Institute, Provincetown Playhouse, and La MaMa.

Recent Work

Two of Evans’s compositions are featured in ''The American Revolution'' (2025), a documentary miniseries by filmmaker Ken Burns. To celebrate his ninth decade, Evans is also composing a series of new works reflecting his Celtic heritage. His Irish dance medley, ''MacIntyre Cottage,'' was recorded remotely during the Covid pandemic by musicians in the US, Sweden, and Ireland.

Personal life

Evans has three offspring: Berklee Sati (b. 1977) an employee of a major foundation and a lifelong dancer; Blake Lowrey-Evans (b. 1981), composer, music teacher, and multi-instrumentalist; and Beka Lowrey-Evans (b. 1984), businesswoman, singer, and yoga practitioner. Richard is married to Debra Wakefield Evans, a television and film editor whom he met while they were both living in New York City around the year 2000. She produced the ''Ireland's Poet-Patriots'' concert series for Evans.

References

External links

CSUDH Digital Collections. Photograph: Professor Bunger with students (early 1980s)CSUDH Digital Collections. Photograph: Professor Bunger receiving award (June 12, 1982)CSUDH Digital Collections. Photograph: Richard Bunger plays piano (early 1980s)CSUDH Digital Collections. Photograph: Professor Bunger at the blackboard (1982)CSUDH Digital Collections. Photograph: Professor Bunger, seated, in group accepting Japanese music (early 1980s)CSUDH Digital Collections. Photograph: Bungerack - faculty invention (1973)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Richard Bunger
American male classical composers
Songwriters from Pennsylvania
1942 births
Living people
University of Kentucky alumni
University of Illinois alumni
Oberlin College alumni
Lafayette College alumni
Queens University of Charlotte faculty
20th-century American classical composers
21st-century American classical composers
Musicians from Allentown, Pennsylvania
Classical musicians from Pennsylvania
20th-century American male musicians
21st-century American male musicians
American male songwriters