Roy Travis

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Roy Elihu Travis (born June 24, 1922 in New York City , New York ; died October 19, 2013 ) was an American composer .

Life

Roy Travis studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar at the Juilliard School and music theory with William John Mitchell and composition with Otto Luening at Columbia University in New York City and was a private theory student of Felix Salzer . With a Fulbright scholarship he was able to deepen his training as a scholarship holder with Darius Milhaud in Paris in 1951/52 .

He developed new harmonic chord structures and is considered one of the pioneers in the incorporation of African and Indian polyrhythmic structures into Western music . He wrote operas (for which he was inspired by ancient Greek dramas ), orchestral , vocal and chamber music and many piano works . His interest in African material began in the 1960s when he took part in a study group led by master drummer Robert Ayitee (1910–1980) from Ghana . In his four-movement African sonata for piano from 1966, composed in a neo-African idiom , various elements from the music of West African peoples are used: (i) Sikyi (a dance of the Ashanti (ii) dance song of the Bambara , (iii) Sohu (a dance of the Ewe ) (iv) Adowa (another Ashanti dance).

He has taught at Columbia University , Mannes College, and then at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as Professor of Music since 1968 .

Works (selection)

  • African Sonata in four movements for piano (1966)
    • Sikyi
    • Bambara dance song
    • Sohu
    • Adowa
  • Switched On Ashanti (1973)
    • Akom
    • Tachema Chema
    • Sikyi
  • String Quartet (1958)
  • Labyrinth for orchestra (1950)
  • Duo Concertante (1967)
    • Gakpa
    • adagio
    • Allegro Marcato
    • adagio
    • Asafo
  • 5 pieces for piano
  • Fantasy and Indian rhythms: for violin and orchestra
  • Five Preludes for piano
  • Symphonic Allegro
  • Songs and Epilogues (based on Sappho )
  • Piano concerto
  • Opera The Passion of Oedipus (after King Oedipus by Sophocles )
  • Opera The Black Bacchants (1982, based on the Bacches by Euripides )
  • Septet for 2 woodwinds, 3 strings, piano and percussion
  • Piano Sonata No. 1 (1954)
  • Collage for orchestra (1968)
  • Concerto for flute, pre-recorded African instruments, and electronic synthesizers

Awards

His awards include:

  • Gershwin Award
  • Martha Baird Rockefeller Award (1968)
  • Guggenheim Fellowship (1972–3)
  • Ford Foundation grant

Quote (Russel Steinberg)

“ Roy Travis, an emeritus UCLA composition professor, passed away with little fanfare, and family members are lost about what to do with his music. That impressed upon me how important it is for us composers today not to, in any sense, wait to be discovered. It's up to us (me). ”

See also

literature

  • Peter Hollfelder : The great manual of piano music . Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 1996
  • Maurice Hinson, Wesley Roberts: Guide to the Pianist's Repertoire . Fourth Edition. Bloomington & Indianapolis 2014 ( books.google.de excerpt).
  • Don Michael Randel: The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians . ( books.google.de excerpt).
  • Neil Butterworth: Dictionary of American Classical Composers. 2005, p. 463 ( books.google.de ), p. 1992 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b Obituary (English) from the Los Angeles Times (accessed September 17, 2016)
  2. ↑ Kofi Agawu: The African Imagination in Music. 2016 ( books.google.de excerpt).
  3. ^ A b Biography of Roy Travis on the Robert Ayitee Foundation website (Biography of Akin Euba , 1993) - accessed September 17, 2016
  4. ↑ oxfordindex.oup.com
  5. ↑ jewishjournal.com ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jewishjournal.com
personal data
SURNAME Travis, Roy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Travis, Roy Elihua
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH 19th October 2013