Serge Tcherepnin

Serge (Alexandrovitch) Tcherepnin (Russian: Серг Александрович Тчерепнин) (born 2 February 1941 in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris) is an American composer and electronic-instrument builder of Russian-Chinese origin.

Serge Tcherepnin is the son and grandson of composers Alexander Nikolayevitch Tcherepnin and Nikolai Nikolayevitch Tcherepnin. His mother was Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming. He had his first instruction in harmony with Nadia Boulanger and studied from 1958 to 1963 at Harvard University with Leon Kirchner and Billy Jim Layton. He became naturalized American citizen in 1960. In 1961 at the Darmstadt Vacation Courses he studied with Luigi Nono. He then studied in Europe with Pierre Boulez, Herbert Eimert, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Between 1966 and 1968 he worked at the studio for electronic music of the Cologne Hochschule für Musik. From 1968 he directed the electronic studio of New York University, since 1970 he taught composition and electronic music at the School of Music-California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Later he was also involved with the development of synthesizers and founded the company Serge Modular Music Systems. After selling the company in 1986 he returned to France. He has composed works for tape and electronic instruments, multimedia works, chamber music, a Kaddish for speakers and chamber ensemble (1962, on a text of Allen Ginsberg) as well as pieces for saxophone and for piano.

His brother Ivan (Alexandrovitch) Tcherepnin was also a well-known composer, as are two of Ivan’s sons, Stefan (born 1977) and Sergeï (born 1981).

Compositions (selective list)

Inventions, for piano (1960)
String Trio (1960)
String Quartet (1961)
Kaddish (text by Allen Ginsberg), for speaker, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, piano, two percussionists (1962)
Figures-Grounds, for 7–77 instruments (1964)
Morning After Piece, for saxophone and piano (1966)
Two Tapes (Giuseppe’s Background I–II), for 4-track tape (1966)
Two More Tapes (Addition and Subtraction), for 2-track tape (1966)
Quiet Day at Bach, for solo instrument and tape (1967)
Piece of Wood, multimedia piece for performers and actors (1967)
Piece of Wood with Weeping Woman, multimedia piece for performers, women, stagehand, and tape (1967)
Film, for Baschet instruments, traditional instruments, tape machines, four-channel amplification, ring modulators, theater, stage, and lights (1967)
For Ilona Kabos, for piano (1968)
Definitive Death Music, for amplified saxophone and chamber ensemble (1968)
"Hat" for Joseph Beuys, for actor and tape (1968)
Paysages électroniques, film score (1977)
Samba in Aviary, film score (1978)

Sources

Marshall, Ingram. 1975. "New Music at Cal Arts: The First Four Years (1970-74)." Numus 2, no. 1 (Winter): 52–60.