Frank Abbinanti

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Frank Abbinanti (* 1949 in Chicago , Illinois , USA ) is an American composer, pianist and trombonist.

Life

Frank Abbinanti took private trombone lessons from 1964 to 1968 with Frank Crisafulli (1916–1998) in Chicago and studied piano at the American Conservatory of Music there . As a teenager he experimented with aleatory forms of composition in imitation of John Cage. He then studied composition and performance art with Richard Teitelbaum and piano with Frederic Rzewski at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . Here he achieved his Bachelor of Arts and worked as an assistant under both teachers. He later studied composition at the University of Chicago with Ralph Shapey. Together with his wife Ruth Abbinanti, he founded The Modern Music Workshop at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1972 with the aim of organizing concerts of contemporary music at the Museum of Contemporary Art and other venues. In 1974 he graduated. Ruth Abbinanti was appointed as a flute lecturer at Elmshurst College in Chicago in 1976. Stylistically, he was looking for his own way between John Cage and Shapey's neo-romanticism, as he was fascinated by both directions. In the late 1970s he stopped composing and devoted himself to politics and various social theories. He joined communities studying Karl Marx and his modern students and sought ways to make the world utopian. In 1981 he traveled to Europe for the first time and met Cornelius Cardew in London. In 1983 he helped organize a memorial concert for Cardew, who died in 1981. He then began to compose again at the New Music America Festival 1983, he presented his composition Liberation Music for solo piano. Since then he has been working in the local music scene in Chicago and organizing concerts for European musicians, for example in 1988 the Arditi Quartet . In 1984/85 he took private composition lessons with Ben Johnston in Chicago. In 1985 he went on a European tour as a pianist and presented his own works as well as the works of other contemporary composers associated with Chicago. Together with the composer Peter Gena (* 1947) he founded Interarts Chicago, Inc. with the aim of engaging many European avant-garde artists in Chicago. In 1989 he played the piano for the video Opera Nature is leaving us . Performances were between October 13 and 22, 1989 at the Goodman Thetre Studio in Chicago. As a soloist, he premiered many works for euphonium, piano, trombone and tuba. He played euphonium in the Banda Napoletana in Chicago. He worked in the early 1990s as musical advisor to the Italian cultural consulate in Chicago and from 1991 to 1995 as assistant conductor of the Citywide Orchestra in Chicago. In 1997 he organized the NEMO Festival in Chicago with Pierre Boulez as musical advisor and performed by Ensemble Modern . He is a board member of the Echo Performing Arts Orchestra, a nonprofit in California . From 1998 to 2004 he taught at the University of Chicago and gave lectures throughout the USA and in Europe, for example in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. His preferred publisher is Frog Peak Music . Abbinanti has played with the Arditti Quartet, John Tilbury , Guillermo Gregorio , Willem Breuker Kollektief , Ensemble Modern, Pierre Boulez and Elaine Radigue, among others .

Works (selection)

Frank Abbinanti wrote mostly chamber music as well as vocal and piano works. In addition to his compositions, he wrote several essays and in 2005 the book Frog Peak Music was published by Frog Peak Music. He describes his works as postmodern and eclectic for the most part as neotonal and postelectronic.

Orchestral works

  • American Labor Studies for Large Orchestra Version 1, premiered on February 24, 1991 by the Harper Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Frank Winkler in the Building Theater of Harper College in Chicago and Vol. 2, 2006
  • After Iraq , 2006
  • strategy a contrapecho del hombre . Concerto for cello and orchestra
  • Rhapsodic Concerto War and Peace for violoncello and orchestra. The Rhapsodic Concerto was held in 1999 at Azusa Pacific University with cellist Janice Foy and the APU Symphony Orchestra. Premiered.
  • Four Songs , commissioned for the Chicago Chamber Orchestra.

Chamber music

  • The Meteln Kassandra . The work premiered in September 1988 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . The piece is based on the story Kassandra by Christa Wolf . She wrote them in Meteln in 1980 and 1981. Hence the name of the composition. It was recorded by the Ensemble Chicago pro Musica , consisting of musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra .
  • City Music wrote Abbinanti for Keith Rowe in 1988. The piece is notated in two parts, known and unknown . Keith Rowe performed it on October 13, 2012 at LAMPO in Chicago. In 1990 he recorded it on A Dimension Of Perfectly Ordinary Reality on Matchless Recordings .
  • power clown , for horn, bass trombone, violoncello, double bass, piano and percussion, 1999
  • LURE , for violoncello and piano, 2004
  • gentle beast for double bass, 2004
  • what remains for us , for alto flute, two flutes and bass flute, 2007
  • things cant be dis baad , for flute, 2007
  • Four Songs , commissioned for the Chicago Chamber Orchestra
  • La Lucha [The Battle] for brass ensemble, a tribute to the Spanish Civil War , was composed for the Pitzen Brass Ensemble.
  • Falling Engel / falling head = Falling angel / falling head : After the Wall for alto saxophone was released in 2017 by Frogmusic in Lebanon, New Hampshire .
  • Cerco de puas = (Barbed wire) for bassoon was released in 2017 at Frogmusic in Lebanon, New Hampshire .
  • La luciernaga [The Firefly] for bassoon solo in a movement in 7/4 time was released in 2017 by Frogmusic in Lebanon, New Hampshire .

Piano music

  • Liberation Music for piano, 1983. It is partly improvisational piece based on the Italian workers' anthem La bandiera rossa. It was presented at the New Music America Festival in 1983.
  • American Labor Studies . Version for piano. The pieces recall events in the history of the trade unions .
    • Volume 1: I Lobsterwoman / South Addison Maine II Triangle Shirt Fire (1911) , commemorates the fire of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory III Mudmarch IV Native American Ironworkers V Exxon Valdez , Prince Williams Sound , Alaska VI Brakeman / Spearville Kansas VII Los rios profundos VIII Cigar Factory IX The Fishgutter's Song X Entre pancho villa y una mujer desnuda XI Tarantella di Baracatti (Squatter's Tarantella) XII ten year old spinner, poor white, 48 inches tall XIII Forge Worker's Hands, Oakland California XIV The Garment Worker
    • Volume 2: I Trackwoman for the Pacific Northwest II Locked Out III Women Workers Leaving the Shipyard, California IV My Blacklung V Spooling in New England VI Night Meeting, 1939, Cotton Pickers at the Crossroads VII Kitchen Hovel, Alabama VIII Bordados Sonica IX Laying Track for the Brooklyn Tunnel, 1947 X Laundry Room Worker XI Longshoremen / Coos Bay, Oregon , 1976
  • Jenin is a one-hour improvisational work for piano that was created in 2002 and is areminder of the 2002 military actionin Jenin . It mourns the victims of the action.

reception

  • Kyle Gann wrote in 2003 in A Hyper History of New Music and Politics that Abbinanti was the only new generation American composer he knew besides Jeffrey Schanzer who defined himself as a political composer and, moreover, as a Marxist.

literature

  • Ted Shen: Frank Abbinanti, lonely on the left. Article in Chicago Reader on February 21, 1991
  • Ted Shen: Frank Abbinanti. Article in Chicago Reader, September 11, 1997

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Romeo Talento: Frank Abbinanti - The Living Composers Project. Retrieved July 24, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Ted Shen: Music Notes: Frank Abbinanti, lonely on the left. Retrieved August 21, 2017 .
  3. ^ A b c Uncle Dave Lewis: Frank Abbinanti. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved November 13, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Elmhurst College . In: The Changing Scene . February 1, 1976, p. 101 , JSTOR : 3394964 (English).
  5. ↑ Kyle Gann: Music Notes: the Arditti Quartet, an underground legend . In: Chicago Reader . ( chicagoreader.com [accessed November 13, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Miroslaw Rogala, Darrell Moore: "Nature Is Leaving Us": A Video Theater Work . In: Leonardo . tape 26 , no. 1 , 1993, ISSN  0024-094X , p. 11-18 , doi : 10.2307 / 1575773 , JSTOR : 1575773 .
  7. ↑ Main. Retrieved November 14, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Fri. May 4th, 2012 (7:00 p.m.), Forum Neue Musik, Christianskirche: "BLURRED EDGES - PIANO MUSIC FROM FRANK ABBINANTI" . In: Jazz Guide Hamburg . ( jazz-guide-hamburg.de [accessed on November 14, 2017]).
  9. ↑ Janice Foy. In: Bravo LA Janice Foy, 2000, accessed November 13, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Dr. Janice Foy. In: danielpearlmusicdays.org. Daniel Pearl Music Foundation, accessed November 13, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Dennis Polkow: New Works by Local Composers . In: Chicago Reader . ( chicagoreader.com [accessed November 13, 2017]).
  12. ↑ The Clarinet In My Mind / Chicago Pro Musica - Newport Classic: NPD85537 | Buy from ArkivMusic. Retrieved November 13, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Keith Rowe Oct 13 2012. In: lampo.org. Lampo, October 13, 2012, accessed November 14, 2017 .
  14. ^ Keith Rowe - A Dimension Of Perfectly Ordinary Reality. In: www.discogs.com. Retrieved November 14, 2017 .
  15. ^ A b c d e Kyle Gann: Making Marx in the Music: A HyperHistory of New Music and Politics . In: NewMusicBox . November 1, 2003 (English, newmusicusa.org [accessed November 13, 2017]).
  16. ↑ Frank Abbinanti: Cerco de puas =: (Barbed wire): bassoon . Frog Peak Music, Lebanon, NH 2017 ( dartmouth.edu [accessed November 13, 2017]).
  17. ↑ La luciernaga = (the firefly): bassoon. 2017, accessed November 13, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Ted Shen: Music Notes: Frank Abbinanti, lonely on the left. Retrieved August 21, 2017 .
  19. ↑ Frank Abbinanti: American labor studies, [14] scores for piano /. vol. I . Frog Peak Music, Lebanon, NH 2011 ( uci.edu [accessed August 21, 2017]).
  20. ↑ Frank Abbinanti: American labor studies, 11 scores for piano /. vol. 2 . Frog Peak Music, Lebanon, NH 2011 ( uci.edu [accessed August 21, 2017]).
  21. ↑ Ted Shen: Frank Abbinanti . In: Chicago Reader . ( chicagoreader.com [accessed November 14, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME Abbinanti, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer, pianist and trombonist
DATE OF BIRTH 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois