Christian Wolff is widely acknowledged as one of the most important American composers of the 20th century. He was born in 1934 in Nice, France, and has lived in the U.S. since 1941. He studied piano with Grete Sultan and, briefly, composition with John Cage. His association and friendship with Cage and with Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and David Tudor helped set the direction of his work, as did later association with Frederic Rzewski and Cornelius Cardew.
Since 1952 he has been musically connected to Merce Cunningham and his dance company. In addition to his composing (over 200 works to date) he has been a sometime performer and improviser with, among others, AMM, Larry Polansky, Kui Dong, Keith Rowe, Christian Marclay, Takehisa Kosugi, and Steve Lacy. His music is published by C.F. Peters and much of it as been recorded. Academically trained as a classicist, he taught at Harvard from 1963 to 1970, and at Dartmouth College from 1971 to 1999, in the music and classics departments. He is currently a full-time independent musician.
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Part of Music, Language, Mind, Evolution, a series of free Monday/Wednesday evening lectures with eminent scholars from a variety of disciplines — music, music cognition, biology, and language — exploring the fundamentals of why and how we make and hear music. Part of the course Music 007 taught by Professor Larry Polansky.
The public is cordially invited.
Admission is free.
Parking $4.
More information at (831) 459-4731.
Sponsored by the UCSC Arts Division, Arts Dean's Fund for Excellence, and US Bank.