Glenn Branca

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Glenn Branca (1980s)

Glenn Branca (born October 6, 1948 in Harrisburg , Pennsylvania , † May 13, 2018 in New York City ) was an American avant-garde composer and guitarist. His works combine minimal music , series of natural tones , drone music , scordatura with rock and noise rock .

Career

Branca began his musical experiments in Boston in the early 1970s with the theater company he founded Bastard Theater . In 1976 he moved to New York and played in various no-wave bands such as The Static and Theoretical Girls . In 1977 he performed with Rhys Chatham in his Guitar Trio.

In the early 1980s, Branca composed works for electric guitar ensembles, including The Ascension (1981) and Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses (1981). Soon after, he wrote his first symphonies for electric guitar and percussion orchestras. In them he combined booming industrial noise with microtonal elements. He also used third bridge guitars . His preoccupation with the mathematical foundations of harmony is reflected in Symphony No. 3 (Gloria) . Branca took up ideas from Dane Rudhyar , Hermann von Helmholtz and Harry Partch . Musicians with whom he already worked during this time are u. a. Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth , Page Hamilton of Helmet (band) and various members of the Swans and Rat At Rat R .

From the Symphony No. 7 Branca also composed works for traditional orchestras.

Branca belongs to the second generation of post-minimalism , also known as totalism . This direction took up the minimal music of the 1960s and 1970s; Their distinguishing feature is a significantly increased rhythmic and tonal complexity compared to this, with an otherwise repetitive arrangement structure. He was best known for his fusions between rock music and minimalist elements and later for his improvisational works for solo trumpet.

Glenn Branca succumbed to throat cancer in May 2018 at the age of 69 .

Discography (selection)

  • Songs 77-79
  • The Ascension, 1981
  • Lession No. 1 maxi
  • Symphony No. 1 "Tonal Plexus", Music in Four Movements for Multiple Guitars, Keyboards, Brass & Percussion, 1981
  • Symphony No. 2
  • Symphony No. 3 "Gloria", Music for the first 127 intervals of the harmonic series, 1983
  • Symphony No. 4 "Physics"
  • Symphony No. 5 "Describing Planes of an Expanding Hypersphere"
  • Symphony No. 6 "Devil Choirs At The Gates Of Heaven"
  • Symphony No. 7th
  • Symphony No. 8 & 10, The Mysteries, 1994
  • Symphony No. 9
  • The World UpSide Down
  • Giorny Poetry Systems Who you staring at?
  • Soundtrack The Belly Of An Architect (with Wim Mertens )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Matthew Strauss: Glen Branca dead at 69 . In: pitchfork.com on May 14, 2018, accessed May 15, 2018
  2. ^ Kyle Gann: A Forest from the Seeds of Minimalism: An Essay on Postminimal and Totalist Music , program for the Minimal Music Festival 1998 of the Berlin Society for New Music
personal data
SURNAME Branca, Glenn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American avant-garde composer and guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrisburg , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 2018
Place of death New York City