James Tenney
James Tenney (born August 10, 1934 in Silver City , New Mexico , † August 24, 2006 in Valencia , California ) was an American composer and music theorist.
education
Tenney grew up in Arizona and Colorado , where he received his first piano and composition lessons. He studied in New York , Vermont and Illinois at the Juilliard School of Music and Bennington College, among others . He graduated from the University of Illinois . He was trained on the piano by Eduard Steuermann . He received composition lessons from Edgard Varèse and John Cage .
Artistic career
Tenney was a pioneer in electronic and computer music, working at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the early 1960s on developing programs for computerized sound synthesis and composition. During these years, James Tenney maintained close contact with the so-called New York avant-garde (John Cage, Morton Feldman , Earle Brown ). He was co-founder and from 1963 to 1970 director of the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble in New York City, which experimented with electroacoustic music . In addition to James Tenney, the group also included Philip Corner and Malcolm Goldstein . Their style was “legendary, sometimes harsh, just not massively compatible”. (taz).
Tenney composed for both instruments and electronic sound generators, often using alternative tuning systems. In his widely acclaimed theoretical work “Meta / Hodos”, which appeared in 1961, he developed a new method of musical analysis. With his extensive musical research, especially in the field of microtonal harmonics and acoustics , he became one of the "most important and subliminally influential composers and teachers of his generation". (NZZ)
As some of his many influences, he names Cage and Varèse, Charles Ives , Carl Ruggles , and “European composers” such as Arnold Schönberg , Anton Webern , Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók . Tenney's idea of composition is described by himself as “organizing sound, or organizing situations where sounds will be produced”: “There aren't any rules anymore. There are conditions, there are relationships that can be pointed out, there are situations, where, if you choose a, that means you are not going to be able to have b. You can't have everything at once. The notion of a rule based creative process is an old fashioned one, that we don't adhere to hear. "
From 1993 to 1994 he was a guest of the German Academic Exchange Service and lived in Berlin during this time. Most recently he was a professor at York University in Toronto and lived in Valencia, California, where he died of lung cancer at the age of 72.
Works
Stage plays
- Choreograms, 1964;
- deus ex machina, 1982
Orchestral works
- Quiet Fan for Erik Satie , 1970–71
- For 12 Strings (rising), 1971
- Clang, 1972
- Three Harmonic Studies1, 1974
- Chorales, 1974
- Tangled Rag, strings, 1978
- Forms 1-4 In Memoriam Edgar Varèse, John Cage, Stefan Wolpe , Morton Feldman , 1993
- In a large, open space, 1994
- Spectrum 3, 1995
- Diapason, 1996
- Scend for Scelsi, 1996
- Song'n'Dance for Harry Partch , 1999
- Last Spring in Toronto, 2000
Piano music
- Music for Player Piano, 1964
- Three Rags, 1969
- Tangled Rag, 1978
- Spectral CANON for Conlon Nancarrow , 1974
- Chromatic Canon, 1980
- Bridge, 1984
- Flocking, 1993
- Ergodos IIIs, 1994
- 3 Pages in the Shape of a Pear, 1995
- Prelude and Toccata, 2001
Vocal music
- Thirteen Ways of looking at a Blackbird (Text Wallace Stevens ), 1958
- Postal Piece No. 2: A Rose is a Rose is a Round, 1970
- Hey when I sing these 4 songs hey look what happens, 1971
- Listen ... !, 1981
- Sneezles, 1986
- Ain't I a Woman? (Text Sojourner Truth ), 1992
Individual evidence
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tenney, James |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American composer and music theorist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 10, 1934 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Silver City, New Mexico , USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 24, 2006 |
| Place of death | Valencia (California) , USA |