American composer
William Duckworth
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Born
| William Duckworth
(
1943-01-13
)
13 January 1943
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Died
| 13 September 2012
(2012-09-13)
(aged 69)
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William Duckworth
(January 13, 1943 ? September 13, 2012) was an American composer,
author
,
educator
, and Internet pioneer. He wrote more than 200 pieces of music and is credited with the composition of the first
postminimal
piece of music,
The Time Curve Preludes
(1977?78), for
piano
. Duckworth was a Professor of Music at
Bucknell University
. Together with Nora Farrell, his wife, he ran Monroe Street Music, the publisher of many Duckworth's pieces.
Biography
[
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]
Duckworth was born in North Carolina in 1943. He obtained a bachelor's degree in music from
East Carolina University
, then master's and doctorates in music education from the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
.
[1]
He studied
composition
under composer
Ben Johnston
and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the notation of composer
John Cage
. Duckworth received a 2002
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Grants to Artists Award, as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1977. Duckworth collaborated with his future wife, Nora Farrell, on his internet projects before marrying her. Over the years Duckworth enjoyed a close collaboration with
James Jordan
who frequently performs Duckworth's music with his world-renowned choral ensembles. Duckworth died at his home in West New York, N.J., after a long fight with pancreatic cancer.
[2]
[3]
Work as a composer
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]
Duckworth wrote more than 200 pieces of music. His best-known compositions include
The Time Curve Preludes
, 24 short pieces for piano, and
Southern Harmony
, which consists of 20 pieces for an eight-part chorus and employs features of shape note singing and minimalism. Other works include
Mysterious Numbers
, written for chamber orchestra,
Imaginary Dances
, for solo piano, and
Simple Songs about Sex and War
, written in collaboration with poet Hayden Carruth. "The Time Curve Preludes" were recorded by
Bruce Brubaker
in 2009,
[4]
and by R. Andrew Lee in 2011. In the last months of his life, Duckworth completed a piano concerto for Brubaker.
[5]
Publications
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]
Author:
- Theoretical Foundations of Music
1978 with Edward Brown
- Talking Music: Conversations With John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Five Generations of American Experimental Composers
1995 (
ISBN
0-306-80893-5
)
- A Creative Approach to Music Fundamentals
1981 (
ISBN
0-534-09420-1
)
- 20/20: 20 New Sounds of the 20th century
1999 (
ISBN
0-02-864864-1
)
- Virtual Music: How the Web Got Wired for Sound
2005 (
ISBN
0-415-96675-2
)
Editor:
- Sound and Light: La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela
1996 (
ISBN
0-8387-5346-9
).
- John Cage at Seventy-Five
1989.
Foreword:
- Jazz: American Popular Music
by Thom Holmes (2006).
Career in education
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]
Duckworth was professor and former chairman of the Department of Music at
Bucknell University
in Lewisburg, Penn.
[6]
A 1992 profile in
Rolling Stone
magazine described him as a "hip, bright, innovative teacher."
[7]
Duckworth instructed
Martin Rubeo
, founder of the alternative rock band
Gramsci Melodic
, when the latter was a student at
Bucknell University
.
[8]
Internet activities
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]
Much of Duckworth's late music was composed and performed as part of 'Cathedral'. Conceived in 1996 and launched on June 10, 1997,
Cathedral
is a work in music and art which depicts five "mystical moments in time": The building of the Great Pyramid in Giza, the building of Chartres Cathedral, the 19th century Native American Ghost Dance movement, the detonation of the atomic bomb, and the creation of the World Wide Web.
[9]
More recently,
Cathedral
has served as the site for the distribution of
The iPod Opera 2.0: The Myth of Orpheus, the Chronicler and Eurydice
, podcast in 26 episodes as MP3 and QuickTime video files. The video episodes may be downloaded and played on many different kinds of computer systems, including Apple OS, Windows and Linux computers, while the MP3 files may be downloaded and burned as an audio disk. The completion of the podcast in February 2007 was timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first performance of
Monteverdi's
L'Orfeo
.
[10]
Cathedral
features an instrument called the PitchWeb, which allows anyone with a computer to play along with the Cathedral Band when the band is performing live over the Internet. Duckworth plays the PitchWeb on a laptop computer when the band performs live.
[11]
Cathedral
was conceived during a conversation Duckworth had with his wife, Nora Farrell, a software designer who specializes in music and publishing web applications. Farrell collaborated with Duckworth on
Cathedral
and elements of it such as "The iPod Opera 2.0." As a member of the Cathedral Band, she edits the PitchWeb contributions by outside musicians.
A chapter in Duckworth's 2005 book,
Virtual Music: How the Web Got Wired for Sound
, discusses the
Cathedral
site.
References
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]
- ^
Kozinn, Allan. "William Duckworth, internet composer, dies at 69." New York Times 22 Sept. 2012: B8(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
- ^
Kozinn, Allan, "William Duckworth, Internet Composer, Dies at 69,"
The New York Times
, September 22, 2012
- ^
Kyle Gann's obituary for William Duckworth, accessed 13 September 2012
- ^
Kosman, Joshua,
"CD: Bruce Brubaker 'Time Curve'"
, "San Francisco Chronicle", August 2, 2009
- ^
Duckworth, William,
"BIG PIANO"
, composer's blog
- ^
"William Duckworth"
.
www.bucknell.edu
. Retrieved
March 7,
2019
.
- ^
Zevin, Dan. "Dancing in the seats." Rolling Stone 639 (1992): 83. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. July 1, 2010.
- ^
The Duquesne Duke 9-11-2008
- ^
Kozinn, Allan. "William Duckworth, internet composer, dies at 69." New York Times 22 Sept. 2012: B8(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
- ^
Kozinn
- ^
Kozinn
Further reading
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]
- Gillespie, Don C. 2001. "Duckworth, William (Ervin)".
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
, second edition, edited by
Stanley Sadie
and
John Tyrrell
. London: Macmillan Publishers.
External links
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