Download or read book Adventures of an American Composer written by Neal Colgrass and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2010 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Selected recordings of Michael Colgrass": p. 217-221.
Download or read book Henry Cowell written by Joel Sachs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-09 with total page 619 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joel Sachs offers the first complete biography of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century American music. Henry Cowell, a major musical innovator of the first half of the century, left a rich body of compositions spanning a wide range of styles. But as Sachs shows, Cowell's legacy extends far beyond his music. He worked tirelessly to create organizations such as the highly influential New Music Quarterly, New Music Recordings, and the Pan-American Association of Composers, through which great talents like Ruth Crawford Seeger and Charles Ives first became known in the US and abroad. As one of the first Western advocates for World Music, he used lectures, articles, and recordings to bring other musical cultures to myriad listeners and students including John Cage and Lou Harrison, who attributed their life work to Cowell's influence. Finally, Sachs describes the tragedy of Cowell's life, being sentenced to fifteen years in San Quentin -- of which he served four -- after pleading guilty to a morals charge that even the prosecutor felt was trivial. Providing a wealth of insight into Cowell's ideas and philosophy, Joel Sachs lays out a much-needed perspective on one of the giants of twentieth-century American music.
Download or read book The Odyssey of an American Composer written by Otto Luening and published by Macmillan Reference USA. This book was released on 1980 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in Milwaukee in 1900, Otto Luening grew up in the rich musical culture of German immigrants. At the age of five he wrote his first piece of music - a "very modern" waltz. When his father, a conductor and conservatory teacher, heard it he said, "It must be discouraged, an artist's life is much too difficult in the United States." In 1912 the Luenings moved to Munich, where Otto studied flute at the Royal Academy. Soon after World War I began, Luening fled to Zurich, where he studied with the legendary Ferruccio Busoni and played in the Tonhalle Orchestra under such conductors as Richard Strauss. In Zurich he found a patron in Edith Rockefeller McCormick. He also acted in James Joyce's theater group and took part in some of the bizarre musical projects of the Dadaists. Back in America in the twenties, he worked as a pit musician in a Chicago movie theater, played vaudeville piano, and organized the American Grand Opera Company. His reputation as a composer, conductor, and performer soon earned him a position at the Eastman School of Music, and from there he went on to teach at the University of Arizona, Bennington College, and Columbia University. Luening has been a vital force in American music for many years. As the composer of Evangeline and as conductor of world premieres of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium and Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's The Mother of Us All, he has fostered the growth of American opera. One of the first to compose electronic music, he has also been tireless in his work as a composer and educator to alert Americans to their musical heritage. Here is the delightful story of one man's adventures in the republic of music, and his excursions to Hollywood, Tunisia, the Cologne studio of Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the Acadian towns of Nova Scotia and Louisiana, where he wrote his opera. Here also is the story of his relationships with such different personalities as Martha Graham, Harry Partch, Edgar Varese, and Carl Sandburg. A pioneer, musical roustabout, and faithful servant of his art, Otto Luening affords us through his memoirs a vivid and full picture of twentieth-century musical life.
Download or read book Cybersonic Arts written by Gordon Mumma and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Composer, performer, instrument builder, teacher, and writer Gordon Mumma has left an indelible mark on the American contemporary music scene. A prolific composer and innovative French horn player, Mumma is recognized for integrating advanced electronic processes into musical structures, an approach he has termed ""Cybersonics."" Musicologist Michelle Fillion curates a collection of Mumma's writings, presenting revised versions of his classic pieces as well as many unpublished works from every stage of his storied career. Here, through words and astonishing photos, is Mumma's chronicle of seminal events in the musical world of the twentieth century: his cofounding the Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music; his role in organizing the historic ONCE Festivals of Contemporary Music; performances with the Sonic Arts Union; and working alongside John Cage and David Tudor as a composer-musician with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In addition, Mumma describes his collaborations with composers, performers, dancers, and visual artists ranging from Robert Ashley and Pauline Oliveros to Marcel Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg. Candid and insightful, Cybersonic Arts is the eye-opening account of a broad artistic community by an active participant and observer.
Download or read book George Russell written by Duncan Heining and published by African American Cultural Theo. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Russell: The Story of an American Composer is the first biography of one of the greatest figures in jazz, written with Russell's full cooperation. Extensively researched with interviews from friends, family members, musicians, associates, and commentators on jazz, the book contains valuable insights that reveal many previously unknown facts about Russell's life.
Download or read book Vibrations written by David Amram and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of David Amram's adventures growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania, working odd jobs, misfitting in the Army, barnstorming through Europe with the famous Seventh Army Symphony, exiling in Paris, scuffling on the Lower East Side, day-laboring - often down but never out - finally emerging as a major musical force.
Download or read book Upbeat written by David Amram and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Amram-composer, jazz artist, conductor, and world music pioneer-has been described by the Boston Globe as "the Renaissance man of American music." From early collaborations with Kerouac and Sinatra, chosen by Leonard Bernstein as the New York Philharmonic's first composer in residence, Amram's artistry has taken him from concerts with Willie Nelson to jamming with the Massai tribe of Kenya. In Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat, Amram recounts his extraordinary adventures in the many worlds of music he calls home, all told in a rollicking anecdotal style that makes you feel that you are at home around the world. He writes, "Everywhere I have been in the world, music transcends politics. As musicians, we were able to go beyond all that and just be fellow human beings." Threading through Amram's tale of music, hard work, respect, and friendship are unforgettable stories of fellow great artists-Dizzie Gillespie, Hunter S. Thompson, Janet Gaynor, George Plimpton, Lyle Lovett, Zoe Caldwell, Willie Nelson, and many more.
Download or read book Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer written by Gary A. Rosen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-01-15 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer is the lively story of legal giant Nathan Burkan, whose career encapsulated the coming of age of the institutions, archetypes, and attitudes that define American popular culture. With a client list that included Charlie Chaplin, Al Jolson, Frank Costello, Victor Herbert, Mae West, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, Arnold Rothstein, and Samuel Goldwyn, Burkan was “New York’s Spotlight Lawyer” for more than three decades. He was one of the principal authors of the epochal Copyright Act of 1909 and the guiding spirit behind the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (Ascap), which provided the first practical means for songwriters to collect royalties for public performances of their works, revolutionizing the music business and the sound of popular music. While the entertainment world adapted to the disruptive technologies of recorded sound, motion pictures, and broadcasting, Burkan’s groundbreaking work laid the legal foundation for the Great American Songbook and the Golden Age of Hollywood, and it continues to influence popular culture today. Gary A. Rosen tells stories of dramatic and uproarious courtroom confrontations, scandalous escapades of the rich and famous, and momentous clashes of powerful political, economic, and cultural forces. Out of these conflicts, the United States emerged as the world’s leading exporter of creative energy. Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer is an engaging look at the life of Nathan Burkan, a captivating history of entertainment and intellectual property law in the early twentieth century, and a rich source of new discoveries for anyone interested in the spirit of the Jazz Age.
Download or read book Charles T Griffes The Life of an American Composer With Plates Including Portraits written by Edward M. MAISEL and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Film and Television Music written by Warren M. Sherk and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music has played a critical component in the success of films. This volume compiles over 100 years of writings devoted to the subject of film and television music and its practitioners.
Download or read book Ornette Coleman written by Maria Golia and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2022-06-20 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With striking photographs and personal insight, a compelling biography of the great American saxophonist and free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman. Ornette Coleman’s career encompassed the glory years of jazz and the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas, during the Great Depression, the African-American composer and musician was zeitgeist incarnate. Steeped in the Texas blues tradition, he and jazz grew up together, as the brassy blare of big band swing gave way to bebop—a faster music for a faster, postwar world. At the luminous dawn of the Space Age and New York’s 1960s counterculture, Coleman gave voice to the moment. Lauded by some, maligned by many, he forged a breakaway art sometimes called “the new thing” or “free jazz.” Featuring previously unpublished photographs of Coleman and his contemporaries, this book tells the compelling story of one of America’s most adventurous musicians and the sound of a changing world.
Download or read book Charles T Griffes written by Edward Maisel and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1984 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After his tragic death in 1920, at the age of thirty-five, Charles T. Griffes became the object of an almost fanatical devotion among many American music-lovers, and his reputation and stature have grown steadily ever since. His songs, piano compositions, string music, and symphonic works are now in the repertoire of leading musicians and symphonic organizations. Against a rich background of contemporary figures and of musical life in the early years of this century, Mr. Maisel here traces the story of Griffes' rise from obscure origins. Much light is thrown on the conditons and problems of American music in general; and there is a careful analysis of many of the central ideas of Griffes' music, especially his best-known pieces, The White Peacock and The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan. The result is an interesting chapter in the history of American culture, and a fascinating study of the creative temperament in our time.
Download or read book My Adventures in the Golden Age of Music written by Henry T. Finck and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reflections of an American Composer written by Arthur Berger and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-11-28 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book of memoirs and essays by notable composer, critic and teacher Arthur Berger. The author writes vividly about the music scenes in New York, Paris, and Boston, and of his work with notable colleagues such as Stravinsky, Copeland, and Virgil Thompson.
Download or read book A Fine Romance written by David Lehman and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Fine Romance, David Lehman looks at the formation of the American songbook—the timeless numbers that became jazz standards, iconic love songs, and sound tracks to famous movies—and explores the extraordinary fact that this songbook was written almost exclusively by Jews. An acclaimed poet, editor, and cultural critic, David Lehman hears America singing—with a Yiddish accent. He guides us through America in the golden age of song, when “Embraceable You,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “My Romance,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Stormy Weather,” and countless others became nothing less than the American sound track. The stories behind these songs, the shows from which many of them came, and the shows from which many of them came, and the composers and lyricists who wrote them give voice to a specifically American saga of love, longing, assimilation, and transformation. Lehman’s analytical skills, wit, and exuberance infuse this book with an energy and a tone like no other: at once sharply observant, personally searching, and attuned to the songs that all of us love. He helps us understand how natural it should be that Wizard of Oz composer Harold Arlen was the son of a cantor who incorporated “Over the Rainbow” into his Sabbath liturgy, and why Cole Porter—the rare non-Jew in this pantheon of musicians who wrote these classic songs shaped America even as America was shaping them. (Part of the Jewish Encounter series)
Download or read book The Life of Music written by Nicholas Kenyon and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nicholas Kenyon explores the enduring appeal of the classical canon at a moment when we can access all music—across time and cultures Immersed in music for much of his life as writer, broadcaster and concert presenter, former director of the BBC Proms, Nicholas Kenyon has long championed an astonishingly wide range of composers and performers. Now, as we think about culture in fresh ways, Kenyon revisits the stories that make up the classical tradition and foregrounds those which are too often overlooked. This inclusive, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic guide highlights the achievements of the women and men, amateurs and professionals, who bring music to life. Taking us from pianist Myra Hess’s performance in London during the Blitz, to John Adams’s composition of a piece for mourners after New York’s 9/11 attacks, to Italian opera singers singing from their balconies amidst the 2020 pandemic, Kenyon shows that no matter how great the crisis, music has the power to bring us together. His personal, celebratory account transforms our understanding of how classical music is made—and shows us why it is more relevant than ever.
Download or read book Our American composer written by Mikita Mulliken and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
