Udo Kasemets (November 16, 1919 – January 19, 2014) was a Canadian composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, piano and electroacoustic works. He was one of the first composers to adopt the methods of

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 Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

, and was also a conductor, lecturer, pianist, organist, teacher and writer. Kasemets was born in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

, and trained at the Tallinn Conservatory and the Akademie der Musik in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

. In 1950, he attended the Kranichstein Institut für neue Musik in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

, where he became familiar with the music and philosophies of Ernst Krenek, Hermann Scherchen and

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 ...

. He emigrated to Canada in 1951, and became a Canadian citizen in 1957. From the 1950s, Kasemets was active in

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a 2021 Canadian census, population of 569,353 (2021), and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which encompasses ...

and

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

in Canada. He taught at the Royal Hamilton College of Music and served as conductor of the Hamilton Conservatory Chorus, until 1957. He was music critic for the ''

Toronto Daily Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands division. The newspaper was establis ...

'' 1959–63 and taught at the Brodie School of Music and Modern Dance 1963–67. In 1962–63, he organized Toronto's first new music series ''Men, Minds and Music'', and established the Isaacs Gallery Mixed Media Concerts. In 1968, he directed the first Toronto Festival of Arts and Technology entitled ''SightSoundSystems'' and founded and edited a new music publication series, Canavangard. In 1971, Kasemets joined the Faculty of the Department of Experimental Art at the Ontario College of Art, where he taught until retiring in 1987. Kasemets' significant influences include

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undi ...

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

, James Tenney,

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 o ...

Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

, Buckminster Fuller, and

Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...

. Other strong influences especially evident in his later work include the Chinese ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

'' and fractal music. Kasemets lived in Toronto, Ontario.

Selected works

* ''Requiem Renga, for the victims of wars and violence in our time'' (1992) for fifteen strings and two percussionists, based on the Japanese renga chain poetry form. * ''Palestrina on Devil's Staircase, with Dis(Con)sonant Contrapuntal Connections'' (1993) for three violins, three cellos, and two sopranos, music based on the eponymous fractal and also commemorating the 400th anniversary of Palestrina's death in 1994. * ''The Eight Houses of the I-Ching'' (1993) for twelve strings

References

External links

* *
Archival papers and manuscripts
a
University of Toronto Music Library
* http://composers21.com/compdocs/kasemetu.htm at The Living Composers Project {{DEFAULTSORT:Kasemets, Udo 1919 births 2014 deaths 20th-century Canadian composers 20th-century Canadian male musicians 21st-century Canadian composers 21st-century Canadian male musicians 21st-century Estonian classical composers Canadian classical composers Canadian male classical composers Canadian people of Estonian descent Estonian World War II refugees Estonian emigrants to Canada Musicians from Hamilton, Ontario Musicians from Tallinn Musicians from Toronto State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart alumni

Selected works

References

Further reading

External links