FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 10, 2015
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
rebecca.a.bailey@dartmouth.edu
603.646.3991
America’s—and Dartmouth’s—“quietest, most rigorous and fiercely original”
musical maverick to be celebrated, October 22-24
Photo: Christian Wolff at Dartmouth, March 2015
HANOVER, NH—Christian Wolff has lived several lives simultaneously: as a (now-emeritus) Dartmouth College
professor of classics, comparative literature and music; as a low-key resident of Royalton, VT, where he and
wife Holly raise sheep and goats on her family’s farm; and as a world-renowned composer whose ideas about
sound have profoundly influenced contemporary music.
“Christian Wolff’s position in
circles of formative 20th
century composers is
unassailable,” wrote the
journal Sound American in
December 2014 in an issue
devoted to Wolff’s music.
“Yet, he has managed to
quietly live a life of family,
work, and making music. In
the pages of this journal, the
word ‘iconoclast’ has been
thrown around a lot, as well
as the idea of some
transcendental American
maverick musical figure.
Christian Wolff is the
quietest, most rigorous, and
fiercely original version of both the word and the idea.”
Wolff’s role in music’s evolution will be celebrated at Dartmouth October 23-24 with The Exception and the
Rule, a cluster of performances and events featuring Wolff and a global roster of composers, musicologists
and performers, including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)—called “bracing, illuminating,
reassuring” (Financial Times, UK) and “the new gold standard for new music” (The New Yorker). In addition, a
Dartmouth Library Exhibit titled Christian Wolff: beginning anew at every ending will be on display in the
Baker Library Main Hall from September 1 through December 10, with an exhibition reception on Thursday,
October 22 at 4 pm. All events are free.
In addition, the Dartmouth Department of Music and the Hop have created a 36-page commemorative
booklet as a companion to the celebration, with an essay by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross; an interview of
Wolff by his former Dartmouth colleague Larry Polansky, now on the faculty of the University of California
Santa Cruz; and interviews with American avant-garde composer and piano virtuoso Frederic Rzewski and
English new music performer Phillip Thomas, about Wolff’s music. The booklet is available free, electronically
at https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/exceptionandtherule and will be available in print form at the Wolff
celebration venues.
“This celebration is our attempt to plumb the depths that Christian has brought to Hanover, depths that defy
celebration,” wrote Steve Swayne, Music Department Chair and the Jacob H. Strauss 1922 Professor of Music,
in the booklet’s introduction. Noting Wolff’s unassuming manner “as he has pushed people and sound and
form and art to their boundaries and beyond,” he speculates that Wolff “may be more astonished at what has
happened in the world of music because of him than are those who gather for this celebration…to honor a
giant.”
At 81, the unassuming Wolff has been considered a force in experimental music for most of his life. A 2013
article in the Los Angeles Times called him “one of America's most unpredictable, most venturesome, most
radical (politically and compositionally), most inventive, most satisfying (intellectually, aesthetically and
musically) and…least recognized (at least by America's musical establishment) living composers…Ten works by
Wolff call for 10 reviews. Each composition is a unique artistic construct. One piece does not sound like
another piece. One minute may not even sound like the next in the same piece…Yet there is a kind of
intellectual and artistic integrity that somehow makes a Wolff work a Wolff work.”
Born in 1934, raised in New York City, and a member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1971, Wolff’s utterly
original approach has inspired generations of musicians and forged collaborations with artists in and out of
music. Over the six decades since he began composing, his methods and results have enthralled many fellow
artists, musicians and composers—from the late choreographer Merce Cunningham, who used many Wolff
compositions with his dances; to the punk rock group Sonic Youth, which included works by Wolff on its 1999
album Goodbye, 20th Century; to the experimental composer John Cage, who described Wolff’s music as “like
the classical music of an unknown civilization.”
One of Wolff’s major contributions has been compositions that give performers choices rather than telling
them what notes to play and for how long, with instructions that prompt them to improvise according to
particular guidelines and cues from other performers. Some scores intersperse passages of conventional
notation with written instructions; while some “prose scores” consisting solely of text instructions. He also
created “semi-graphic scores” like his often-performed Edges (1968): a sheet of symbols signifying various
sorts of sounds, accompanied by instructions stating that it can be played by any number of performers, using
any instruments (or voices), with each player deciding what symbol to perform when and for how long.
Wolff’s instructions are often playful, but still specific. In one section of the composition Double Song for JRN
and CMAW, performers are told to “sing or lightly speak with lilt (something like a sigh without the final
downward fall)” the words “no more beer,” “beginning with the first repeated as often as desired, then the
second as often as desired, then likewise the third, all in approximately the rhythm of your respiration.”
Far from sounding like free-for-alls, however, performances of Wolff’s works are noted for their chambermusic-like sympathetic listening, dynamic contrasts and expanded palette of sounds. Wrote Rzewski: “Your
first encounter with the music of Christian Wolff leaves you with the impression [that] you’ve just heard (or
played, or read) something totally strange, unlike anything else you know…Weird little tunes, sounding as if
they had been beamed at some remote point in the universe and then bounced back again as a kind of
intergalactic mutant music; recognizable melodic and rhythmic patterns, somehow sewn together in
monstrous pairings, sometimes reminiscent of the demons of Hieronymus Bosch, composites of animals, fish,
flowers, and common household objects: there is order, but also constant interruption, intrusions of
disorderly reality upon regularity and lawfulness, combing to create an effect of both familiarity and
strangeness.”
“Christian Wolff’s work addresses the way musicians interact with each other, and with material,” wrote
composer James Saunders in The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music (2009). “In much of his
work the contingency of the relationships he prescribes between people leads to a vibrant provisionality in the
resultant music.”
Wolff was born in Nice, France, to the German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, then in exile from
Hitler’s regime. In Germany the Wolffs had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Walter Benjamin
and others who pushed the envelope of 20th-century fiction; after relocating to the U.S. in 1941, they helped
to found Pantheon Books, which became known chiefly for English translations of European literature.
Passionate about music, they counted among their close friends such notable European émigré musicians as
Rudolf Serkin and Adolph Busch. These friends modeled what it meant to devote one’s life to music,
something young Christian was determined to do as well, Wolff said in a 2014 lecture at England’s Oxford
University.
Wolff began studying piano as a child but by early adolescence had concluded he would never be good enough
for a career as a concert pianist. Falling in love with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto, he tried to write his own
work in that vein, but quickly realized he couldn’t repeat the past. Falling under the spell of the music of
Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, he began writing in his own invented “12-tone” system (a family of
20th-century techniques that push composers to write outside of conventional musical keys). He began
showing these compositions to his piano teacher, Grete Sultan, to make up, he said in 2014, for his less-thandiligent practicing. She suggested he take composition lessons; Wolff mentioned composer Edgar Varèse, his
neighbor. Sultan suggested instead her friend John Cage, who had studied with Schoenberg and had made his
name with music for percussion and prepared piano that inspired many but bewildered audiences.
After about six weeks of lessons from Cage—which included analyzing a Webern symphony and learning about
counterpoint—Cage blithely told Wolff the lessons were done; the point of the exercises had been to develop
discipline, something Wolff’s compositions already evidenced, so Wolff should simply go on composing. Their
friendship endured, however, and Wolff became a close associate of Cage and his artistic circle, which
included the fellow composers Earle Brown and Morton Feldman, the pianist David Tudor, and Merce
Cunningham, Cage’s life partner. When Pantheon published the first English edition of the I Ching, an ancient
Chinese divination system, Wolff gave Cage a copy—which helped Cage form his notions of “indeterminancy”
or chance in musical composition.
After this heady adolescence, Wolff went on to get his BA and PhD in Classics at Harvard University and taught
at Harvard until 1970. Interviewing for a job in Dartmouth’s Classics Department, he ended up being hired to
teach as well in the departments of Comparative Literature and Music, the latter thanks to his nascent fame as
a composer. After nine years, he became Strauss Professor of Music, and taught until his retirement in 1999.
During and after Wolff’s teaching career, however, his composition continued. The works of the years during
which he was teaching and raising a family include such influential pieces as the hyper-notated serialist For
Piano and the prose score Stones . In the 1970s, deeply moved by the politics of the time, he began
introducing protest texts and songs and folk songs into his music—their revolutionary overtones dovetailing
well with his non-dictatorial composition style. After retirement, he’s been able to focus more on composition,
producing such major works as Ordinary Matter (2001–04), for three orchestras, John Heartfield (Peace March
10) (2002) and Microexercises (2006). He also became the regular pianist for the company of his longtime
friend Merce Cunningham until the latter’s death in 2009.
The Dartmouth celebration—called The Exception and the Rule after a Wolff composition—involves a
fascinating and international swath of musicians and scholars for discussions and performances. On Friday,
October 23, at 4:30 pm, in Faulkner Recital Hall of the Dartmouth Department of Music, a panel discussion on
Wolff’s music brings together composer and former Dartmouth music professor Larry Polansky, now at the
University of California, Santa Cruz; UC Santa Cruz musicologist Amy Beal; composer/artist David Behrman,
whose multimedia installations have been exhibited in the US and Europe and are part of the permanent
collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; Robert Carl, a composer and scholar who chairs the
composition program at The Hartt School, University of Hartford; composer and sound artist Alvin Lucier,
whose work was celebrated during the Hop’s 2014-15 season; and composer/performer/writer Michael
Parsons.
At 7 pm Friday, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) performs noted works by Wolff dating from
1950 through 2006. Based in New York and Chicago, ICE is described by The New York Times as “one of the
most accomplished and adventurous groups in new music,” and is known not only for introducing new musical
works (it has premiered more 500 compositions since its founding in 2001) but for broadening the
international audience for new music. Honors the group has received include the American Music Center’s
Trailblazer Award, the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming and Musical
America Worldwide's 2013 Ensemble of the Year award.
On Saturday, October 24, 2 pm, in Dartmouth’s Rollins Chapel, ICE and others perform works by Wolff
including his 2014 memorial piece for Pete Seeger and the 2015 Brooklyn. Other performers include American
drummer and percussionist Joey Baron, who has worked extensively with such jazz icons as Jim Hall, John
Abercrombie, Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano and David Douglas, as well as avant-garde saxophonist John
Zorn; Baron collaborator Robyn Schulkowsky, who has premiered and recorded many of the most important
percussion works of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the CD 8 Duos—music by Christian Wolff, on New
World Records, and the October 2014 Munich premiere of Wolff’s latest work for solo percussion and string
orchestra, Encouragement; and composer and improviser George E. Lewis, whose work in electronic and
computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, text-sound works, and notated and improvisative
forms is documented on more than 140 recordings
At 7 pm Saturday, in Faulkner, the celebration concludes with improvisation sets involving Polansky, Baron,
Schulkowsky, Lewis, Wolff and percussionist Ikue Mori, a force in new music since the 1970s.
RELEVANT LINKS:
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/exceptionandtherule
http://issuu.com/hopkinscenter/docs/wolff_final
http://iceorg.org/
http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/alex-ross
http://composers21.com/compdocs/rzewskif.htm
http://www.philip-thomas.co.uk/biog.html
http://www.frogpeak.org/unbound/wolff/wolff_prose_collection.pdf?lbisphpreq=1
http://mattsmiley.blogspot.com/2010/04/christian-wolff-rehearsal-on-edges.html
http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/picturesofmusic/pages/wolf/edgesinst.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za1faBWAeMI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV_1ktvGUgU
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zxr7b
http://music.ucsc.edu/faculty/larry-polansky
http://music.ucsc.edu/faculty/amy-beal
http://www.dbehrman.net/
http://composers.com/robert-carl
http://alucier.web.wesleyan.edu/
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/professors-and-speakers/michael-parsons
http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Joey_Baron.html
http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Robyn_Schulkowsky.html
http://music.berkeley.edu/columbia-professor-george-e-lewis-delivers-the-spring-2013-bloch-lectureseries-on-improvisation/
http://www.ikuemori.com/
Download high-resolution photos:
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScont
ent::loadArticle::article_id=A14ACB33-679C-469F-9E075A08469894E7&sessionlanguage=&SessionSecurity::linkName=
CALENDAR LISTINGS:
Reception for exhibition: Christian Wolff: beginning anew at every ending
Baker Library Main Hall, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover NH
Thursday, October 22, 4 pm
Free
In place from September 1 through December 10, the exhibition highlights key aspects of Christian Wolff’s
work: indeterminacy, politics and collaboration; and celebrates the composer’s long association with
Dartmouth College as a professor of music, classics and comparative literature.
Panel Discussion: Christian Wolff: In Performance
Friday, October 23, 4:30 pm
Faulkner Recital Hall, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH
Free
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
Moderated by Larry Polansky (Prof. of Music, UC Santa Cruz), noted guests discuss Wolff’s music as
transmitted to the public over the past six decades. With Amy Beal, musicologist; David Behrman,
composer/artist; Robert Carl, chair of the composition program at The Hartt School, University of Hartford;
Alvin Lucier, composer; and Michael Parsons, composer/performer/writer.
Performance of Works by Christian Wolff
Friday, October 23, 7 pm
Faulkner Recital Hall, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH
Free
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
The program includes the breakthrough Duo for Pianists from 1957 in which each pianist freely chooses
variable sound configurations in the real-time process of performance. Also on the program are one of the
very early pieces using very small numbers of pitches (three in this case), Serenade for flute, clarinet and
violin (1950); a work for piano and percussion, Trio V for James Tenney (2006); a percussion solo,
Percussionist (2000), and one of the Exercises, from a collection of pieces with open instrumentation and
improvised heterophonic playing, written in 1973-4. This will be played by a larger ensemble including eight
members of ICE.
Performance of Works by Christian Wolff
Saturday, October 24, 2 pm
Rollins Chapel, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
Free
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
The program will consist of two recent larger ensemble pieces, Pete, a memorial piece for Pete Seeger
(2014), commissioned by ICE and here performed by them, and Brooklyn (2015), a piece with open
instrumentation allowing performance by six or more players, including some who are also improvisers, in
this case percussionists Robyn Schulkowsky and Joey Baron, guitarist Larry Polansky, Wolff, new music and
jazz composer and improviser George Lewis, and several members of ICE. Also on the program are Isn’t this
a Time for clarinet and saxophone (1982) and a selection of Exercises (1973-4) with a variety of performers.
Improvisation Performance
Saturday, October 24, 7 pm
Faulkner Recital Hall, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH
Free
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
This concert will feature performances, in various combinations, by noted improvisers Ikue Mori, who uses
a laptop, and percussionists Robyn Schulkowsky and Joey Baron, along with Larry Polansky, guitars, and
Christian Wolff, piano and objects, and composer/improviser George Lewis.
* * *
Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing
arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and
the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each
year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students
and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with
outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop
enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the
development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.