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.

Training

Tenney grew up in Arizona and Colorado, where he received his first piano and composition lessons. He studied in New York, Vermont and Illinois, among others, at the Juilliard School of Music and Bennington College. His exams he took at the University of Illinois. By Eduard helmsman, he was trained on the piano. He received lessons in composition with Edgard Varèse and John Cage.

Artistic Career

Tenney was a pioneer in the field of electronic and computer music, and worked in the early 1960s at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the development of programs for computer-controlled sound synthesis and composition. In these years, James Tenney maintained a close contact with the so-called New York avant-garde ( Cage, Feldman, Browne ). He was co-founder and from 1963 to 1970 director of the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble in New York City, which experimented with electro-acoustic music. The group included except James Tenney and Philip Corner, Malcolm Goldstein, your style was " legendary, sometimes harshly, just not for the masses ". ( taz).

Tenney composed both instruments as well as for electronic tone generator, often using alternative tuning systems. In his much-publicized theoretical journal " 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 harmony and acoustics, he was one of the " most important and influential composers of subliminal and teachers of his generation." (NZZ)

From 1993 to 1994 he was a guest of the German Academic Exchange Service and lived during this time in Berlin. 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 years.

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

  • Postal Piece No.. 2: A Rose is a Rose is a Round, 1970
  • Hey when i sing 4 songs thesis hey look what happens, 1971
  • Lists ...! , 1981
  • Sneezles, 1986
  • Is not I a Woman? (Text Sojourner Truth ), 1992
Silver City (New Mexico) Eduard Steuermann Wallace Stevens Integrated Authority File
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