AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES                                                                  139 a-d

Jonathan Kramer

With Vincent Plush

San Diego, CA

April 19-21, 1983

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side a                                                                                                             pp. 1-25

Growing up in Hartford--music in the family--composing at an early age--playing the clarinet--the record of the month club--early Grand Solos--playing for relatives--academic orientation as opposed to music--pieces listened to in school--parents' occupations--Harvard and mathematics--switching into composition class with Leon Kirchner--discovery by Alvin Epstein--discussing ideas for the first symphonies--the Hartt Youth Symphony and the Funeral March--Franchetti and study--the graduate composition seminar with Kirchner--Kirchner's style of teaching--the final drop out of Harvard--back to home--playing the clarinet in Boston--Berio in Boston--LaMonte Young--finding out about Cage--life back in Hartford--back again to Harvard and Kirchner--being performed at Harvard--experimenting with tape recording--switching to music major--summer study with Franchetti and piano--freshman harmony--Billy Jim Layton--model writing with Kirchner--applying for graduate schools.

Side b                                                                                                                        pp. 25-49

Choosing Berkeley over Brandeis--getting away from home--the atmosphere of Berkeley--the Tape Center and Mills College--Terry Riley--In C--playing Lutoslawski--Stockhausen at UC Davis--Introduction to electronic music--Larry Austin and the Improvisation Ensemble--studying with Imbrie and Stockhausen at the same time--the Oakland Symphony and KPFA--the music department's response to Vietnam--writing the Requiem for the Innocent--Stanford and the computer music course--pieces written at Berkeley--studying with Eloy--the Cummington community in Massachussetts--working with Roger Sessions--PhD compositions--multi-media pieces written at Cummington.

Side c                                                                                                             pp. 49-71

Multi-media performance in Santa Cruz--Blue Music--working at Oberlin--overloaded with work in Oberlin--teaching at Yale--composition seminars at Yale--writing articles on theoretical topics--Stravinsky and Darmstadt--teaching summers at Yale--New York's lack of influence--the Blackearth group--writing for the Blackearth group--Blackearth Canons and Five Studies on Six Notes--the conflict of European teaching versus American teaching styles--views on American composers--synthesizing modal muisic--being able to enjoy Cage's efforts as well as Britten's Steve Reich--comparing himself to contemporaries--Frederic Rzewski--using Rzewski's works as teaching tools--process in composing.

Side d                                                                                                                        pp. 71-93

Attitudes of intellectual process and immediate process of composing--stumbling into a modal style--large scale concerns--music which moves from a point to another point--Moving Music--timbre in composing--manipulation of compositional parameters--Renascence--the electronic systems in performing Renascence--acceptance of the piece by students--Keith Wilson at Yale--jazz idioms involved--travels to Israel--establishing an immediacy with an audience through simple tunes--composing inbetween process and non-process--Moments In and Out of Time--the fifth piano piece--hypnotic effects in composing what the listener expects--Licks and moment-form--receiving the commission for Moments In and Out of Time--using old pieces as the basis--restrictions of pitch and timbre--the move to Cincinnati--the electronic music studio and teaching theory--Really Radiophonic--the Cincinnati Composers Guild--No Beginning, No End--commission from local Jewish organizations--Parets Markeech--using a Yiddish folk song--changing throughout a career--future directions.