New York, NY
Born 1930, Ann Arbor, Michigan
I would like to describe the vocal technique I have been working on for the past 20 years because I think it has not been used before--in opera or in any other kind of vocal writing. Most recently it was used in the opera Celestial Excursions (premiered in Berlin at the MaerzMusic Festival in March 2003, and then performed at The Kitchen for two weeks in April).
The technique involves a principal voice --the main story at any particular moment-- singing on the meter of the orchestra (in other words, on the first beat or second beat, etc. of every measure). The principal voice is "chased" by any number of other voices comprising a harmonic chorus much like "back-up" singing in other kinds of music. The words of the "chasing" involve an elaboration of the main story or details about the context of the main story. Or the "chasing" can be an entirely different story that is intended to describe something about the "character" singing the main story. The "chasing" technique provides not only a harmonic background for the principal voice, but also a vocal rhythmic element that ties the rhythm of the principal voice to the rhythms generated in the orchestra.
The rhythm of the words in both the principal voice and in the chorus is fast--in fact, imitating the speed of spoken English. And, thus, the pitch range of vocal inflections, chosen freely by the principal voice in any performance, is necessarily small--no more than half an octave. The "character" of the principal voice is established by the singer's obligation to sing on and around an assigned pitch.
This description sounds like a technical analysis of most of popular music now, and in fact, it is. And my work has been compared, favorably and unfavorably, to today's popular music. I am happy with that. My opera work is not at all popular music in many important ways that are really too technical to describe, but in the treatment of the words I think I'm on the right track. I think this is the way American English should be sung.
1957-60 Studies in Composition and Acoustics, University of Michigan Speech Research Laboratories
1954 Mus.M. in Piano and Composition, Manhattan School of Music
1952 Mus.B.in Music Theory, University of Michigan
1960s Director, Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, organized first public-access music and media facility
1966-76 Performer with Sonic Arts Union (David Behrman, Alvin Lucier, and Gordon Mumma)
1964-69 Director, ONCE Group, on tour in the U.S.
1961-69 Co-founder with Gordon Mumma, ONCE Festivals of Contemporary Music, Ann Arbor, Michigan
2002 Celestial Excursions, commissioned by Berliner Festspiele/Hebbel-Theater and Performing Arts Services; to be premiered at Hebbel-Theater, Berlin, and The Kitchen, New York, 2003.
1998 Dust, commissioned by Kanagawa Arts Foundation and Dorothea Tanning; premiered at Kanagawa Arts Festival, Yokohama, Japan; recorded on Lovely Music, LCD 1006, 2000.
1997 Balseros, commissioned by Florida Grand Opera, Miami-Dade Community College, and th South Florida Composers Alliance.
1997 Your Money My Life Good-bye, commissioned as radio production for Bayerischer Rundfunk, in England and Germany; aired in 1999.
1997 When Famous Last Words Fail You, for voice and orchestra, commissioned and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra.
1985 Atalanta (Acts of God), opera for television in three 90-minute episodes; premiered at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; recorded on Lovely Music, LCD 3301, 1997.
1984-88 Now Eleanor's Idea, opera for television in four 90-minute episodes; premiered at Festival d'Avignon, France.
1983 Perfect Lives, opera for television in seven half-hour episodes; commissioned by The Kitchen New York, and co-produced with Channel Four, Great Britain. First broadcast in Great Britain, 1984; televised in Austria, Germany, Spain, the U.S., and shown at film and video festivals worldwide; video recorded on Lovely Music, NTSC/PAL, 2 VHS, 1983; audio recorded on Lovely Music, LCD 4917.3, 1991
1976 Music with Roots in the Aether: Video Portraits of Composers and Their Music, a 14-hour television opera/documentary about the work and ideas of seven composers; premiered at Festival d'Automne, Paris; shown worldwide in over 100 TV broadcasts and closed-circuit installations; video recorded on Lovely Music, NTSC/PAL, 7 VHS, 1976.
1988 Problems in the Flying Saucer, for Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
1983 Son of Gone Fishin', for Trisha Brown Company.
1978 Ideas from the Church, for Douglas Dunn & Dancers.
1978 The Park and The Backyard, for Steve Paxton.
In Four American Composers, by Peter Greenaway, Transatlantic Films, London, and Mystic Fire Video, New York.
Celestial Excursions
Celestial Excursions