![]() He majored in music at the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts (subsequently subsumed into the University of Charleston), where he received his bachelor's degree in 1950. In 1947 he studied at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. He began to compose at an early age and had two of his orchestral works performed by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra while he was still in his teens. The elder Crumb was a multifaceted musician, with activities that included conducting theatre orchestra for the music of silent film, teaching clarinet privately and at the Mason College, and working both a music copyist and arranger. was a clarinetist while his mother Vivian ( née Reed) was a cellist. ![]() Both of Crumb's parents played in the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (CSO) his father George Henry Crumb Sr. was born in Charleston, West Virginia on 24 October 1929 to a musical family and he grew up playing chamber music with them. Life and career Upbringing and education (1929–1959) ![]() To convey his unorthodox and complex musical style, Crumb's musical scores are facsimile manuscripts, using special notation "distinguished by astonishing clarity, precision and elegance, and by arresting graphic symbols in which staves are bent into arches, circles and other pictorial devices." Among his students were the composers Jennifer Higdon, Christopher Rouse and Melinda Wagner. Elements of theatricality appear in numerous compositions, inspiring choreographies from contemporary dance groups. The use of pastiche is also found in his music, as is text by Federico García Lorca, whose poetry Crumb set eleven times. His compositions often contain musical quotations from wide range of composers including Bach, Chopin, Schubert, Strauss, and the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. He was especially influenced by composers such as Mahler, Debussy and Bartók Crumb wrote his four-volume piano set Makrokosmos (1972–1979) in response to Bartók's earlier piano set Mikrokosmos. Among his best known compositions are Black Angels (1970), a striking commentary on the Vietnam War for electric string quartet Ancient Voices of Children (1970) for a mixed chamber ensemble and Vox Balaenae (1971), a musical evocation of the humpback whale, for electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano.īorn to a musical family, Crumb was acquainted with classical music at an early age and his affinity for Classical and Romantic composers in particular would stay throughout his life. His few large-scale works include Echoes of Time and the River (1967), which won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and Star-Child (1977), which won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition however, his output consists of mostly music for chamber ensembles or solo instrumentalists. The unusual timbres he employs evoke a surrealist atmosphere which portray emotions of considerable intensity with vast and sometimes haunting soundscapes. Crumb's compositions are known for pushing the limits of technical prowess by way of frequent use of extended techniques. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical language which "range in mood from peaceful to nightmarish". ![]() (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music.
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