Benjamin Boretz

Benjamin Boretz (3 October 1934) is an American composer and music theorist.

Life and work

Boretz was born in Brooklyn, New York and graduated with a degree in music from Brooklyn College(1954), studied composition with Tadeusz Kassern, and later studied composition at Brandeis University with Arthur Berger, at the Aspen Music Festival and School with Darius Milhaud, at UCLA with Lukas Foss, and at Princeton with Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions. He was one of the early composers to work with computer-synthesized sound (Group Variations II, 1970–72). In the late 1970s and 1980s he converged his compositional and pedagogical practices in a project of real-time improvisational music-making, culminating in the formation (at Bard College) of the music-learning program called Music Program Zero, which flourished until 1995. He has written extensively on musical issues, as critic, theorist, and musical philosopher, from the perspective of a practicing composer. His earliest (1970) large-scale music-intellectual essay was the book-length "Meta-Variations, Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought", which addresses the epistemological questions involved in the cognition and composition of music, and propounds a radically relativistic/individualistic/ontological reconstruction of the music-creative process. Later (1978), his text composition "Language, as a Music, Six marginal Pretexts for Composition" engaged questions of the origin and nature of language and meaning as they might be conceived from the perspective of music.

Boretz has taught music departments in a number of American schools, including Brandeis, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Princeton, University of Chicago, NYU, Columbia University, University of Michigan, Bard College, UC Santa Barbara, Evergreen College, and University of Southampton (UK, as Visiting Fulbright Professor). See: List of music students by teacher: A to B#Benjamin Boretz.

Boretz is a co-founder, with Arthur Berger, of the composers' music journal Perspectives of New Music^[1] and in 1999 founded Open Space, which he edits with Mary Lee Roberts, Tildy Bayar, Dorota Czerner, Dean Rosenthal, Arthur Margolin, and Jon Forshee. He was music critic for The Nation ^[2] from 1962 to 1970.

Recordings

Boretz's work as composer and writer is available on CDs, DVDs, and printbooks issued by Open Space Publications, a cooperative formed by Boretz with Elaine Barkin and J. K. Randall. Recent publications include BEING ABOUT MUSIC, a 2-volume anthology of textworks written between 1960 and 2003 by Randall and Boretz; a CD of Boretz's piano music played by Michael Fowler (Open Space CD 18); the 2-CD album OPEN SPACES 2005: MUSIC AROUND BENJAMIN BORETZ (Open Space CD 20, issued in collaboration with Perspectives of New Music); Open Space DVD1, containing the text-music-video pieces Black /Noise III and music / consciousness / gender; and Open Space DVD2, containing video-text-music collaborations by Boretz, Dorota Czerner, and Russell Richardson (GROUP VARIATIONS; POPPIES). POSTLUDE, WITH JIM RANDALL IN MIND, for string quartet (2005) appears in the 2-CD album JKR 3 (Open Space CD 21). String Quartet (1957-1958-2005), performed by the DAFO Quartet, produced by Dorota Czerner and Malgorzata Polanska is issued on Open Space CD 23. Caves, a poem-reading by Dorota Czerner with music by BB, is on Open Space CD 24; Open Space DVD 1 includes Black Noise III, music/consciousness/gender, as well as collaborations with Dorota Czerner and RUssell Richardson (Poppies, Group Variations, Downtime with Ian Pace); Violin Concerto, played by Charles Castleman, violinist, and the Eastman Composers' Orchestra, conducted by Geoffrey Pope, is on Open Space CD 27.

Principal Compositions

• Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra (1954)

Two Holy Sonnets of John Donne (1954)

• Nocturne for String Orchestra (1955)
• Partita for Piano (1955)

Leda and the Swan (Rilke) for alto voice, 2 cellos, flute (1955)

• Divertimento for chamber ensemble (1955–56)
• Violin Concerto (1956)
• Overture to “Jezebel” (1956)
• String Quartet (1957–58)
• 2 musics for lukas foss (piano 4 hands) (1957)
• Donne Songs for soprano and piano (1959)
• Group Variations I for chamber orchestra (1964–67)
• Group Variations II for computer (version 1, 1972; 2, 1994; 2.1, 2005)
• Liebeslied, for a pianist alone (1974)
• (“...my chart shines high where the blue milk’s upset...”) for solo piano (1976–77)
• Language, as a music / six marginal pretexts for composition for speaker, piano, prerecorded tape (1978)
• Passage, for Roger Sessions at 80 for piano (1979)
• Converge for ensemble (soundscore) (1980)
• Talk: If I am a musical thinker (paperpiece) (1982)
• Elie: The Dance (four-track tape) (1986)
• forM (a music) (four-track tape) (1986)
• to open I (four-track tape) (1986)
• please think (ensemble collage) (1986)
• to open II (piano, ensemble, tape) (1987)
• Invention (piano four hands) (1988)
• 30 Inter/Play realtime sound sessions (1981–88)
• ONE, eight pianosolo soundsessions (1985)

The River Between (2 keyboard sound session with Richard Teitelbaum) (1987) Sugar, Free (with Wadada Leo Smith) (1988)

• Lament for Sarah (piano soundscore) (1989)
• Scores for Composers (1988–1992)
• Dialogue for JKR (piano soundscore) (1990)
• Kivapiece, for and about John Silber (textscore) (1991)
• The Purposes and Politics of Engaging Strangers (for 2 performers) (1991)
• gendermusic for computer (1994)
• music/consciousness/gender (live and recorded speakers, prerecorded music, video images) (1994)
• echoic/anechoic (soundscore for piano) (1997)
• Black /Noise I (for computer) (1998)
• Black /Noise III (video images, computer) (1998)
• Music, as a Music (performance piece for speaker and video) (1998(
• UN(-) for chamber orchestra (1999)
• I/O for two speakers (2001)
• O for piano (2001)
• O for electric guitar (arranged by Mary Lee Roberts) (2002)
• Ainu Dreams (piano soundscore) (2002)
• Postlude (Movement III of String Quartet) (2004-5)
• Downtime for piano and electronic percussion (2005)
• Backlight for the Cygnus Ensemble (2007-8)
• The Memory of All That. A Holy Sonnet of John Donne for Milton Babbitt (1916–2011) (2011)
• Qixingshan for String Quartet (2007–2008; 2010–2011)
• Caves (with dorota czerner) (2009)
• St. Andrews' Night (with dorota czerner) (2011)
• fireflies (with dorota czerner) (2012)
• With respect to George (a postcard for George Quasha at 70) for vibraphone solo (2012)
• ("...The sun poured molten glass on the fields...") for piano (for Robert Morris at 70) (2014)

Fantasy on an improvisation by Jim Randall (in memoriam jkr) for the Cygnus Ensemble (2014)

Principal writings (published)

Books:

• Language, as a music. Six marginal pretexts for composition. for speaker, prerecorded tape, and piano (1978). Lingua Press, 1980
• Talk: If I am a musical thinker. (1980) Station Hill Press, 1984
• Music Columns from The Nation, 1962–70; selected and edited, and with an introduction by, Elaine Barkin. Open Space Publications, 1988
• Meta-Variations. Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought. (1970) Open Space Publications, 1994
• Being About Music. Textworks 1960-2003 (with J. K. Randall). Volume 1: 1960-1978; Volume II: 1978-2003. Open Space Publications, 2003

Articles published: in journals: The Open Space Magazine; Musical America; Musical Quarterly; Harper's; The Nation; Perspectives of New Music; Journal of Philosophy; Cimaise; the London Magazine; Journal of Music Theory; Contemporary Music Newsletter; Proceedings of the American Society of University Composers; Proceedings of the International Musicological Society; News of Music; in books: Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory (W. W. Norton); Perspectives on Musical Aesthetics (W. W. Norton).

References

External links

Open Space: http://www.the-open-space.org

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