Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff was born in 1934 in Nice, France, but has lived mostly in the U.S. since 1941. He studied piano with Grete Sultan and, briefly, composition with John Cage. Though mostly self-taught as a composer, associations with John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, Earle Brown, Frederic Rzewski and Cornelius Cardew have been important for him. A particular feature of his music has been to allow performers various degrees of freedom and interaction at the actual time of performance. His music is published by C.F. Peters, New York, and a good portion of it has been recorded. A number of pieces have been used by Merce Cunningham and the Cunningham Dance Company, starting in 1953.
Wolff has also been active as a performer and as an improviser - with, among others, Takehisa Kosugi, Steve Lacey, Keith Rowe, William Winant, Kui Dong, Larry Polansky and the group AMM. His writings on music, up to 1998, are collected in the book CUES: WRITINGS AND CONVERSATIONS, published by MusikTexte, Cologne. He has received awards and grants from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, DAAD Berlin, the Asian Cultural Council, the Fromm Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts (the John Cage award for music) and the Mellon Foundation. He is a member of the Akademie der Kuenste in Berlin and has received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts. Academically trained at Harvard as a classicist, Wolff has taught classics at Harvard and from 1971 to 1999 was professor of Classics and Music at Dartmouth College.
Films
Filmmakers: Paul Archbold & David Lefeber
Lecture on Experimental Music
The distinguished composer Christian Wolff discusses the concept of Experimental Music, and gives a biographical sketch of his musical developmental in the context of his contemporaries in the US and Europe.
A CMPCP/IMR Performance Research seminar, held at Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House London on 12 May 2014.
Christian Wolff in conversation with Richard Bernas
Christian Wolff talks with the conductor Richard Bernas about his work and his contemporaries: John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, David Tudor, Robert Rauschenberg, Frederic Rzewski and Cornelius Cardew.
