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David Tudor
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
David Tudor was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. He was born in 1926 in Philadelphia and began as an organist. Later he studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan Wolpe. In 1950 he gave the first performance in the United States of Pierre Boulez's second piano sonata. A European tour in 1954 strengthened his name as one of the most important interpreters of avant-garde music.
Music and breakthrough
Composers wrote music for him, including Morton Feldman and above all John Cage. Karlheinz Stockhausen dedicated Klavierstück VI to him. From 1951 Tudor played almost all of Cage's indeterminate piano works, making choices himself about how the score sounded. From the early 1960s he played less piano and wrote mainly electronic works, often for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. His self-built electronic circuits are regarded as milestones of live electronic music. After Cage's death in 1992 he became the company's musical director. In 1969 he founded the first electronic music studio in India, in Ahmedabad.
Influence
Tudor made the pianist a co-creator and showed that electronics could itself become an instrument.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
- 1961Karlheinz Stockhausen: Zyklus – Refrain / Mauricio Kagel: Transición II
- 1978Microphone
- 1984Pulsers / Untitled
- 1991Music for Merce Cunningham
- 1992Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music
- 1994Klavierstuecke
- 1995Neural Synthesis Nos. 6-9
- 1996Piano Avant-Garde: Recordings 1956-60
- 1997The Piano Concertos
- 1998Rainforest (Versions I & IV)
- 2000Atlas Eclipticalis & Winter Music / 103
- 2001Music of Changes
- 2006Rainforest / 4 Mographs, 2 Sections From Gestures II
- 2022Rainforest IV
Mentioned in other articles
- Chance and silence: John Cage Genre
In 1952, in 4'33", the pianist David Tudor sat silently at the grand piano for more than four minutes, so that the sounds in the hall became the music.