Dika Newlin

Dika Newlin (born November 22, 1923 in Portland , Oregon , † July 22, 2006 in Richmond , Virginia ) was an American composer, musicologist and teacher.

Early on, Newlin graduated from high school at age twelve, earned a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University at the age of sixteen, and a master's degree from the University of California at Los Angeles at age eighteen . She submitted her dissertation at Columbia University when she was twenty-two . At the age of eleven she composed the symphonic piece Cradle Song , which was performed three years later by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Vladimir Bakaleinikoff .

At the University of California she was a student of Arnold Schönberg . She kept a diary about her work with him, which she published as a book in 1980 under the title Schoenberg Remembered: Diaries and Recollections (1938-76) . Further teachers were the composer Roger Sessions , the pianists Artur Schnabel and Rudolf Serkin and the musicologist Paul Henry Lang .

Her dissertation Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg (1945) was the first musicological dissertation at Columbia University and one of the first to be published on a living composer. It was published as a book in 1947 and 1968. She also translated Schönberg's collection of essays Style and Idea as well as several German and French books about the composer into English.

From 1945 to 1949 Newlin taught at Western Maryland College , then until 1951 at Syracuse University , until 1965 at Drew University , until 1973 at North Texas State University and finally until 2004 at Virginia Commonwealth University . She always based her teaching on Schönberg's works on harmony and counterpoint. Her students included u. a. the composers Roger Hannay and Michael Bates and the musicologist Theodore Albrecht .

In the mid-1980s, inspired by her students, Newlin performed as a punk rock singer with alternative rock bands such as Apocowlypso . She sang rock standards and her own songs based on her own socially and socially critical texts, in which she combined elements of punk, jazz and classical music. She recorded several albums, including Ageless Icon: The Greatest Hits of Dika Newlin, and was the subject of a leather-clad punk rocker in Michael D. Moore's documentary Dika: Murder City , which won awards at Orlando and Chicago film festivals.

In her own compositions, Newlin followed classical forms and harmonies well into the 1940s. Then serialism gained influence, and since the 1960s she has worked in electronic music, computer composition, group improvisation, and minimalist music . She composed a. a. three operas, a chamber symphony, a piano concerto, chamber music, vocal works and multimedia works. As a concert pianist she played compositions a. a. by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Ludwig van Beethoven , Franz Schubert , Johannes Brahms , Arnold Schönberg , Alban Berg and Anton Webern .

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personal data
SURNAME	Newlin, Dika
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American composer, musicologist and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH	November 22, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH	Portland , Oregon
DATE OF DEATH	July 22, 2006
Place of death	Richmond , Virginia