The first two books (1972, 1973), for solo piano, make extensive use of string piano techniques the third, known as Music for a Summer Evening (1974), is for two pianos and percussion the fourth, Celestial Mechanics (1979), was written for piano four-hands.
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Īnother of Crumb's best known works are the four books of Makrokosmos. It is one of Crumb's best known pieces, and has been recorded by several groups, including the Kronos Quartet. The piece is written for electric string quartet and its players are required to play various percussion instruments and to bow small goblets as well as to play their instruments in both conventional and unconventional ways. Many of his vocal works were written for the virtuoso mezzo-soprano singer Jan DeGaetani.īlack Angels (1970) is another piece which displays Crumb's interest in exploring a wide range of timbres. Several of Crumb's works, including the four books of madrigals he wrote in the late 1960s and Ancient Voices of Children, a song cycle of 1970 for two singers and small instrumental ensemble (which includes a toy piano), are settings of texts by Federico García Lorca. In several pieces, the music is symbolically laid out in a circular or spiral fashion. He has also used unusual layouts of musical notation in a number of his scores. In several pieces he asks players to leave and enter the stage during the piece. Ĭrumb's compositions often incorporate theater as an element of performance. He often asks for instruments to be played in unusual ways and several of his pieces, although written for standard chamber music ensembles, call for electronic amplification. Crumb's musicĪfter initially being influenced by Anton Webern, Crumb became interested in exploring unusual timbres. She recorded his Three Early Songs for the CD George Crumb 70th Birthday Album (1999), and has also performed his Unto the Hills (2001). George Crumb's daughter, Ann Crumb, is a successful actress and singer. Ĭrumb's son, David Crumb, is a successful composer and, since 1997, assistant professor at the University of Oregon. He has continued to compose.Ĭrumb has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Music 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. Some of his most prominent students include Margaret Brouwer, Uri Caine, Christopher Rouse, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Cynthia Cozette Lee, Yen Lu, James Primosch, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Ofer Ben-Amots, Morris Rosenzweig and Gerald Levinson.Ĭrumb retired from teaching in 1997, though in early 2002 was appointed with David Burge to a joint residency at Arizona State University. In 1965 he began a long association with the University of Pennsylvania, becoming Annenberg Professor of the Humanities in 1983. His first teaching job was at a college in Virginia, before he became professor of piano and composition at the University of Colorado in 1958. in 1959.Ĭrumb has earned his living primarily from teaching. He obtained his Master's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and then briefly studied in Berlin before returning to the United States to study at the University of Michigan, from which he received his D.M.A. He studied music first at the Mason College of Music in Charleston where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1950. 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." BiographyĬrumb was born in Charleston, West Virginia, and began to compose at an early age.
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He is not an electronic music composer however, many works call for amplification of instruments, such as Black Angels (string quartet) or Ancient Voices of Children (mixed ensemble). Madrigals, Book I), among numerous others. Five Pieces for Piano), and using a mallet to play the strings of a contrabass (ex.
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Vox Balaenae), metallic vibrato for the piano (ex.
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Examples include seagull effect for the cello (ex. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. George Crumb (born October 24, 1929) is an American composer of contemporary classical music.