Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen ( /ˈwɔːrɪnən/; June 9, 1938 – March 11, 2020) was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He also performed as a pianist and conductor. Wuorinen composed more than 270 works: orchestral music, chamber music, solo instrumental and vocal works, and operas, such as Brokeback Mountain. His work was termed serialist but he came to disparage that idea as meaningless. Time's Encomium, his only purely electronic piece, received the Pulitzer Prize. Wuorinen taught at several institutions, including Columbia University, Rutgers University and the Manhattan School of Music.
Charles Wuorinen
June 9, 1938
March 11, 2020 (aged 81)
Columbia University (BA, MA)
- Composer
- Academic teacher
Life and career[edit]
Background[edit]
Wuorinen was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. His father, John H. Wuorinen, the chair of the history department at Columbia University,[1] was a noted scholar of Scandinavian affairs, who also worked for the Office of Strategic Services, and wrote five books on his native Finland. His mother, Alfhild Kalijarvi, received her M.A. in biology from Smith College. Wuorinen excelled academically, graduating from Trinity School (New York City) as valedictorian in 1956; he later received a B.A. (1961) and an M.A. (1963) in music from Columbia University.[1][2] Early supporters included Jacques Barzun and Edgard Varèse.
1940s and 1950s[edit]
Wuorinen began composing at age 5 and began piano lessons at 6. At 16 he was awarded the New York Philharmonic's Young Composers' Award and the John Harms Chorus premiered his choral work O Filii et Filiae at Town Hall on May 2, 1954.[3] He was active as a singer and pianist with the choruses at the Church of the Heavenly Rest and the Church of the Transfiguration (Little Church Around the Corner), and was the rehearsal pianist for the world premiere of Carlos Chávez's opera Panfilo and Lauretta at Columbia University during the spring of 1957. From 1952 to 1956 Wuorinen was president of the Trinity School Glee Club. He was pianist, librarian, and general manager of the Columbia University Orchestra in 1956–57. During the summers of 1955 and 1956, he was the organist at Saint Paul's Church in Gardner, Massachusetts, where his parents stayed during the summer months. He was awarded the Bearns Prize three times, the BMI Student Composers Award four times, and the Lili Boulanger Award twice (1961 and 1962).[2] He was a fellow at the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East for several years. Many early professional performances of Wuorinen's compositions took place on the Music of Our Time series at the 92nd Street Y run by violinist Max Pollikoff.
1960s[edit]
In 1962 Wuorinen and fellow composer-performer Harvey Sollberger formed The Group for Contemporary Music.[2] The ensemble raised the standard of new music performance in New York, championing such composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter and Stefan Wolpe, who wrote several works for the ensemble. Many of Wuorinen's works were premiered by The Group, including Chamber Concerto for Cello and the Chamber Concerto for Flute. Major Wuorinen compositions of the '60s include Orchestral and Electronic Exchanges, premiered by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss; the First Piano Concerto, with composer as soloist; the String Trio, written for the then newly formed new music ensemble Speculum Musicae; and Time's Encomium, Wuorinen's only purely electronic piece, composed using the RCA Synthesizer at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center on a commission from Nonesuch Records, for which Wuorinen was awarded the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Music at the age of 32.[3] Wuorinen was appointed to instructor at Columbia in 1964 and promoted to assistant professor in 1969, the year he received an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant; during this period, he was visiting lecturer at the New England Conservatory (1968–71), Princeton University (1969–71), the University of Iowa (1970), and the University of South Florida (1971).
1970s[edit]
The 1970s were a particularly fruitful period for Wuorinen, who taught at the Manhattan School of Music from 1971 to 1979. Chamber works during this decade include his first two string quartets, the Six Pieces for Violin and Piano, Fast Fantasy for cello and piano, and two large works for the Tashi Ensemble, Tashi and Fortune. Works for orchestra include Grand Bamboula for strings, A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky, which incorporates the elder master's last sketches, the Second Piano Concerto, and the Concerto for Amplified Violin and Orchestra, which caused a scandal at its premiere at the Tanglewood Festival[4] with Paul Zukofsky and the BSO conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. In 1976 Wuorinen completed his Percussion Symphony,[5] a five-movement work for 24 players including two pianos for the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble and his longtime colleague Raymond Des Roches, as well as his opera subtitled "a baroque burlesque", The W. of Babylon with an original libretto by Renaud Charles Bruce. The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble had also performed and recorded Wuorinen's composition "Ringing Changes" in collaboration with the Group for Contemporary Music prior to the Percussion Symphony, setting the stage for this challenging larger-scale work. The ensemble, created by Raymond Des Roches, recorded the Percussion Symphony, which was released in 1978 by Nonesuch. In the late 1970s Wuorinen became interested in the work of the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation he conducted sonic experiments at Bell Labs in New Jersey. In an interview with Richard Burbank, Wuorinen is quoted as saying:
Death[edit]
On September 7, 2019, Wuorinen suffered a fall that caused a subdural hematoma. Over the next several months he had three additional falls, ultimately leading to his death on March 11, 2020, at New York Columbia-Presbyterian hospital. A requiem mass was held at St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church on May 30, 2020. It was broadcast live and uploaded to YouTube.
Influence and legacy[edit]
Wuorinen's works have influenced a number of other composers. Robert Black cited him as a particular influence on his style. Black also recorded Wuorinen's New York Notes. Jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas wrote, "Around 1992 I found Charles Wuorinen’s book Simple Composition in the Brooklyn Public Library. I thought, 'At last! My problems are over!' Little did I know, they were just beginning... The book had a profound effect on me and spurred a whole new approach to composing for improvising small groups."[31]
In 2019, Perspectives of New Music published a Festschrift, Charles Wuorinen: A Celebration at 80, comprising analytical articles and compositions written for the occasion by Wuorinen's friends and colleagues. The issue (Volume 56, Number 2, Summer 2018) was followed by an 80th birthday celebration at the Eastman School of Music that featured a master class, a symposium, and concerts of his music as well as works dedicated to him.
Performance and conducting[edit]
Wuorinen was active as a performer, a pianist and a conductor of his own works as well as other 20th-century repertoire. His orchestral appearances have included the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the American Composers Orchestra. He conducted the American, and later the West Coast, premieres of Morton Feldman's monodrama Neither.
In 1962 he co-founded The Group for Contemporary Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance of new chamber music.[36] In addition to cultivating a new generation of performers, commissioning and premiering hundreds of new works, the Group has also been a model for similar organizations that have appeared in the United States since its founding.
Personal life[edit]
Wuorinen resided in New York City and the Long Valley section of Washington Township, Morris County, New Jersey.[37] He was married to his longtime partner and manager, Howard Stokar.[38][39]
Wuorinen died in New York on March 11, 2020, aged 81, as a result of injuries sustained in a fall the preceding September.[1][3]
Notable students[edit]
Wuorinen's students include Arthur Russell, Robert Bonfiglio, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Peter Lieberson, Tobias Picker, Kenneth Lampl and James Romig.