Terry Jennings
Terry Jennings ( born July 19, 1940 in Eagle Rock ( CA ), † 11 December 1981 in San Pablo ( CA ) ) was an American composer and performer of minimalist music. He was one of the pioneers of the genre; his most famous works are Winter Trees and Winter Sun (1975).
Life and work
Jennings received from the age of four piano lessons from his parents and was already playing at the age of twelve years, the works of John Cage for prepared piano. In high school, he served as clarinet soloist in the school orchestra. Then he became interested in jazz and also played saxophone. In 1953 he met La Monte Young, with whom he played in Los Angeles jazz; he made also La Monte Young, who also taught him basics of composition, attention to John Cage. From 1954, he received saxophone lessons with William Green at the Conservatory of Los Angeles. He studied composition with Robert Erickson at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and with Leonard Stein at the California Institute of the Arts. He pulled at the beginning of the 1960s to New York City and was part of the Fluxus movement. 1960 his composition Piece for Two Saxophones in the loft of Yoko Ono was listed - even before La Monte Young, he wrote the first minimalisitischen pieces that were based on long -lasting shades and influenced La Monte Young's stylistics (eg in Trio for Strings ). As a composer and performing musician he worked with various dance theater companies, together with Charlemagne Palestine and as a performer in La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music. Although he did not publish his compositions, he also influenced composers of subsequent minimalist generation, such as Harold Budd, Peter Garland and Howard Skempton. In the 1970s, he occupied himself with Neoromantizismen, approximately in its composition The Seasons (1975). Only in 1992 was one of his compositions, Terry's G Dorian Blues, released on an album.