George Crumb is an American composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 of contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...

. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

s, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques

Extended technique

Extended techniques are performance techniques used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional techniques of singing, or of playing musical instruments to obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbres....

. Examples include seagull effect for the cello (ex. Vox Balanae), metallic vibrato for the piano (ex. Five Pieces for Piano), and using a mallet to play the strings of a contrabass (ex. Madrigals, Book I), among numerous others. He is not an electronic music composer, however many works call for amplification of instruments, such as Black Angels

Black Angels (Crumb)

Black Angels , subtitled "Thirteen Images from the Dark Land" is an avant-garde work composed by George Crumb for "electric string quartet." It was composed over the course of a year and is dated "Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 " as written on the score...

(string quartet) or Ancient Voices of Children

Ancient Voices of Children

Ancient Voices of Children is a composition by American composer George Crumb. Written in 1970, the work is scored for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano, oboe, mandolin, harp, amplified piano , and percussion , and was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation...

(mixed ensemble). Crumb's music contains an intense humanism, which is reflected in his personal definition of music: "a system of proportions in the service of spiritual impulse."

Biography

Crumb was born in Charleston, West Virginia

Charleston, West Virginia

Charleston is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers in Kanawha County. As of the 2010 census, it has a population of 51,400, and its metropolitan area 304,214. It is the county seat of Kanawha County.Early...

, and began to compose at an early age. He studied music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 first at the Mason College of Music in Charleston where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1950. He obtained his Master's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

, and then briefly studied in Berlin before returning to the United States to study at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, from which he received his D.M.A. in 1959.

Although his scores and recordings sell steadily, Crumb has earned his living primarily from teaching. His first teaching job was at a college in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, before he became professor of piano and composition at the University of Colorado

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

 in 1958. In 1965 he began a long association with the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

, becoming Annenberg Professor of the Humanities in 1983. Some of his most prominent students include Margaret Brouwer

Margaret Brouwer

Margaret Brouwer Margaret Brouwer Margaret Brouwer (b. Ann Arbor, Michigan, is an American composer.Brouwer studied at Oberlin College, graduating in 1962, and received her master's degree from Michigan State University. Having started her musical career as a professional violinist with the Fort...

, Uri Caine

Uri Caine

Uri Caine is an American classical and jazz pianist and composer.-Early years:The son of Burton Caine, a professor at Temple Law School, Caine began playing piano at seven and studied with French jazz pianist Bernard Peiffer at 12. He later studied at the University of Pennsylvania where he came...

, Christopher Rouse, Osvaldo Golijov

Osvaldo Golijov

Osvaldo Noé Golijov is a Grammy award–winning composer of classical music.-Biography:Osvaldo Golijov was born in and grew up in La Plata, Argentina, in a Jewish family that had emigrated to Argentina in the 1920s from Romania and Russia.Golijov has developed a rich musical language, the result of...

, Jennifer Higdon

Jennifer Higdon

Jennifer Higdon is an American composer of classical music. Higdon has received many awards, including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto and the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto.-Biography:Higdon was born in Brooklyn,...

, Cynthia Cozette Lee

Cynthia Cozette Lee

Cynthia Cozette Lee also known as Cynthia Cozette or Nazik Cynthia Cozette is a contemporary African American classical music composer and librettist. Cozette was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters of Arts Degree in music composition...

, Yen Lu

Yen Lu

Yen Lu was a Chinese-born Taiwanese composer.Yen was educated in National Taiwan Normal University and Mannes College , City University of New York , and University of Pennsylvania . He has received Taiwan's National Cultural Award in 1993 and 1998...

, James Primosch, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Ofer Ben-Amots

Ofer Ben-Amots

Ofer Ben-Amots is a classical Israeli-American composer and teacher of music composition and theory at Colorado College. His music is inspired by Jewish folklore of Eastern-European Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish Ladino traditions...

, and Gerald Levinson

Gerald Levinson

Gerald Levinson is an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Life:At university, he studied with George Crumb, Richard Wernick, and George Rochberg. After college, Levinson went to study composition with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory...

.

Crumb retired from teaching in 1997, though in early 2002 was appointed with David Burge

David Burge

David Burge is an American pianist, conductor and composer. As a performer, he is noted for championing contemporary pieces....

 to a joint residency at Arizona State University

Arizona State University

Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...

. He has continued to compose.

Crumb has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Music

Pulitzer Prize for Music

The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year...

 in 1968 for his orchestral work Echoes of Time and the River and a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition in 2001 for his work Star-Child .

Crumb's son, David Crumb

David Crumb

David Crumb, born May 21, 1962, is a contemporary composer born into a musical family. His father is composer George Crumb, and his sister is singer Ann Crumb...

, is a successful composer and, since 1997, assistant professor at the University of Oregon. George Crumb's daughter, Ann Crumb

Ann Crumb

Ann Crumb is an American actress and singer.The daughter of composer George Crumb and sister of composer David Crumb, she made her Broadway debut in 1987 as a member of the original cast of Les Misérables...

, is a successful actress and singer. She recorded his Three Early Songs for the CD George Crumb 70th Birthday Album (1999), and has also performed his Unto the Hills (2001).

Crumb's music

After initially being influenced by Anton Webern

Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...

, Crumb became interested in exploring unusual timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

s. He often asks for instruments to be played in unusual ways and several of his pieces are written for electrically amplified instruments.

Crumb's compositions often incorporate theater as an element of performance. In several pieces he asks players to leave and enter the stage during the piece. He has also used unusual layouts of musical notation

Musical notation

Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...

 in a number of his scores

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

. In several pieces, the music is symbolically laid out in a circular or spiral fashion.

Several of Crumb's works, including the four books of madrigal

Madrigal (music)

A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....

s he wrote in the late 1960s and Ancient Voices of Children

Ancient Voices of Children

Ancient Voices of Children is a composition by American composer George Crumb. Written in 1970, the work is scored for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano, oboe, mandolin, harp, amplified piano , and percussion , and was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation...

, a song cycle

Song cycle

A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...

 of 1970 for two singers and small instrumental ensemble (which includes a toy piano

Toy piano

The toy piano, also known as the kinderklavier , is a small piano-like musical instrument. The present form of the toy piano was invented in Philadelphia by a 17-year-old German immigrant named Albert Schoenhut. He worked as a repairman at Wanamaker's department store, repairing broken glass...

), are settings of texts by Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

. Many of his vocal works were written for the virtuoso mezzo-soprano singer Jan DeGaetani

Jan DeGaetani

Jan DeGaetani was an American mezzo-soprano known for her performances of contemporary classical vocal compositions.DeGaetani was born in Massillon, Ohio...

.

Black Angels

Black Angels (Crumb)

Black Angels , subtitled "Thirteen Images from the Dark Land" is an avant-garde work composed by George Crumb for "electric string quartet." It was composed over the course of a year and is dated "Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 " as written on the score...

(1970) is another piece which displays Crumb's interest in exploring a wide range of timbres. The piece is written for electric string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 (Crumb notes that amplified acoustic instruments are acceptable, but electric instruments are preferred), and its players are required to play various percussion instrument

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

s and to bow small goblets as well as to play their instruments in both conventional and unconventional ways. It is one of Crumb's best known pieces, and has been recorded by the Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...

.

Another of Crumb's best known works are the four books of Makrokosmos

Makrokosmos

Makrokosmos is a series of four volumes of pieces for piano by American composer George Crumb. The name alludes to Mikrokosmos, a set of piano pieces by Béla Bartók, one of Crumb's favorite 20th-century composers...

. The first two books (1972, 1973), for solo piano, make extensive use of string piano

String piano

String piano is a term coined by American composer-theorist Henry Cowell to collectively describe those pianistic extended techniques in which sound is produced by direct manipulation of the strings, instead of or in addition to striking the piano's keys...

 techniques; the third, known as Music for a Summer Evening (1974), is for two pianos and percussion

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

; the fourth, Celestial Mechanics (1979), was written for piano four-hands. The title Makrokosmos

Makrokosmos

Makrokosmos is a series of four volumes of pieces for piano by American composer George Crumb. The name alludes to Mikrokosmos, a set of piano pieces by Béla Bartók, one of Crumb's favorite 20th-century composers...

alludes to Mikrokosmos, the six books of piano pieces by Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

; like Bartók's work, Makrokosmos is a series of short character pieces. Apart from Bartók, Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

 is another composer Crumb acknowledged as an influence here; Debussy's Preludes comprise 2 books of 12 character pieces, whose titles appear at the end. Crumb's first two books of Makrokosmos for solo piano contain 12 pieces, each bearing a dedication (a friend's initials, however he also wittily dedicates a piece to himself) at the end. On several occasions the pianist is required to sing, shout, whistle, whisper, and moan, as well as play the instrument conventionally and unconventionally. Makrokosmos was premiered by David Burge

David Burge

David Burge is an American pianist, conductor and composer. As a performer, he is noted for championing contemporary pieces....

, who later recorded the work.

Crumb's works are published by the C. F. Peters Corporation

Edition Peters

Edition Peters, also known as C.F.Peters Musikverlag, is a German music publishing house, founded in Leipzig in 1800.From the 1860s it was largely run by members the Hinrichsen family, who were Jewish. The company was confiscated by the Nazis and administered by the "Trustee of Jewish Property"....

.

Orchestral

• Gethsemane (1947), for small orchestra
• Diptych (1955)
• Variazioni (1959), for large orchestra
• Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II) (1967)
• A Haunted Landscape (1984)

Vocal Choral Orchestral

• Star-Child (1977, revised 1979), for soprano, antiphonal children's voices, male speaking choir, bell ringers, and large orchestra

Chamber/Instrumental

• Two Duos (1944?), for flute and clarinet
• Four Pieces (1945), for violin and piano
• Violin Sonata (1949)
• String Trio (1952)
• Three Pastoral Pieces (1952), for oboe and piano
• Viola Sonata (1953)
• String Quartet (1954)
• Sonata for Solo Cello (1955)
• Four Nocturnes (Night Music II) (1964), for violin and piano
• Eleven Echoes of Autumn, 1965 (Echoes I) (1966), for violin, alto flute, clarinet, and piano
• Black Angels
  Black Angels (Crumb)
  Black Angels , subtitled "Thirteen Images from the Dark Land" is an avant-garde work composed by George Crumb for "electric string quartet." It was composed over the course of a year and is dated "Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 " as written on the score...
  
  (Images I) (1970), for electric string quartet
• Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) (1971), for electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano
• Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III) (1974), for two amplified pianos and percussion (two players).
• Dream Sequence (Images II) (1976), for violin, cello, piano, percussion (one player), and off-stage glass harmonica (two players)
• String Trio (1982)
• Pastoral Drone (1982), for organ
• An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Images III) (1986), for amplified flute and percussion (three players).
• Easter Dawning (1991), for carillon
• Quest (1994), for guitar, soprano saxophone, harp, double bass, and percussion (two players)
• Mundus Canis (A Dog's World) (1998), for guitar and percussion

Piano

• Piano Sonata (1945)
• Prelude and Toccata (1951)
• Five Pieces (1962)
• Makrokosmos, Volume I (1972), for amplified piano
• Makrokosmos, Volume II (1973), for amplified piano
• Celestial Mechanics (Makrokosmos IV) (1979), for amplified piano (four hands)
• A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979
  A Little Suite for Christmas
  A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 is a composition for piano, written by American composer George Crumb, written in 1980. The suite is conceptually related to the Nativity frescoes of the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy...
  
  (1980)
• Gnomic Variations (1981)
• Processional (1983)
• Zeitgeist (Tableaux Vivants) (1988), for two amplified pianos
• Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (A Little Midnight Music) (2002)
• Otherworldly Resonances (2003), for two pianos

Vocal

• Four Songs (1945?), for voice, clarinet and piano
• Seven Songs (1946), for voice and piano
• Three Early Songs (1947), for voice and piano
• A Cycle of Greek Lyrics (1950?), for voice and piano
• Night Music I (1963, revised 1976), for soprano, piano/celeste, and two percussionists
• Madrigals, Book I (1965), for soprano, vibraphone, and double bass
• Madrigals, Book II (1965), for soprano, flute/alto flute/piccolo, and percussion
• Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death (1968), for baritone, electric guitar, electric double bass, amplified piano/electric harpsichord, and two percussionists
• Night of the Four Moons (1969), for alto, alto flute/piccolo, banjo, electric cello, and percussion
• Madrigals, Book III (1969), for soprano, harp, and percussion
• Madrigals, Book IV (1969), for soprano, flute/alto flute/piccolo, harp, double bass, and percussion
• Ancient Voices of Children
  Ancient Voices of Children
  Ancient Voices of Children is a composition by American composer George Crumb. Written in 1970, the work is scored for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano, oboe, mandolin, harp, amplified piano , and percussion , and was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation...
  
  (1970), for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano, oboe, mandolin, harp, amplified piano (and toy piano), and percussion (three players)
• Lux Aeterna
  Lux Aeterna (disambiguation)
  Lux Aeterna may refer to:* Lux Aeterna, Latin for eternal light.In music:* Lux Aeterna , album by woodwind player Dave Fitzgerald* Lux Aeterna , album by guitarist Terje Rypdal...
  
  (1971) for soprano, bass flute/soprano recorder, sitar, and percussion (two players)
• Apparition (1979), for soprano and amplified piano
• The Sleeper (1984), for soprano and piano
• Federico's Little Songs for Children (1986), for soprano, flute/piccolo/alto flute/bass flute, and harp
• American Songbook I: The River of Life (2003), for soprano, percussion quartet and piano
• American Songbook II: A Journey Beyond Time (2003), for soprano, percussion quartet and piano
• American Songbook III: Unto the Hills (2001), for soprano, percussion quartet and piano
• American Songbook IV: Winds of Destiny (2004), for soprano, percussion quartet and piano
• American Songbook V: Voices from a Forgotten World (2007), for soprano, baritone, percussion quartet and piano
• American Songbook VI: Voices from the Morning of the Earth (2008), for soprano, baritone, percussion quartet and piano

Filmography

• George Crumb: The Voice of the Whale (1976). Directed and produced by Robert Mugge. Interviewed by Richard Wernick. New York, New York: Rhapsody Films (released 1988).

External links

• Official home page
• Crumb's bio from Naxos
• George Crumb interview by Bruce Duffie, August 27, 1988
• Art of the States: George Crumb four works by the composer
• George Crumb: Voice of the Whale plays Vox Balaenae with a synchronized display of its score