KYLE GANN
Composer and Author
Professor of Music
Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
RESUME LAST UPDATED MAY 5, 2023

EDUCATION

Doctorate - D.Mus., Music Composition (1983)
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Composition with Peter Gena, Computer Music with Gary Kendall, Philosophy with James Edie.

Masters - M.Mus, Music Composition (1981)
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Composition with Peter Gena, Computer Music with Gary Kendall.

Bachelors - B.Mus, Music Composition (1977)
Oberlin Music Conservatory, Oberlin, Ohio
Minor in philosophy. Composition with Randolph Coleman.

Additional composition study with Ben Johnston (1984-86) and Morton Feldman (1975).

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

The Taylor Hawver and Frances Bortle Hawver Professor of Music, Bard College (as of Fall 2013); Associate Professor of Music (Fall 2002-Spring 2013); Assistant Professor of Music (Fall 1997-Spring 2002)
Full-time tenured position in music theory, history, and composition.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music, Bucknell University (Fall 1995-Spring 1997)
Theory, music history, music appreciation, composition, and related courses.

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University (Spring 1996)
Styles and Techniques - Music Since 1945

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Bucknell University (Fall 1990-Spring 1995)
Composition, contemporary music, music appreciation, and music history (medieval, Renaissance, Romantic, 20th Century)

Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn College, N.Y. (Fall 1991).
Seminar: Numbers in New Music (analysis of Conlon Nancarrow, La Monte Young, Ben Johnston); lectures.

Kushell Chair Lecturer, Bucknell University (Spring 1990)
Lectured on musical aesthetics, criticism, and contemporary music; taught composition.

Lecturer in Music, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1986-88)
Music before 1750, Contemporary Music, lectured on the history of music in Chicago.

Teaching Assistant, Northwestern University (1977-81)
Solely responsible for three levels of aural skills; classes in undergraduate theory and American experimental music.

TEACHING QUALIFICATIONS

Composition, music theory (all levels), counterpoint (especially 16th-century), music history (all periods, especially Classical, Romantic, early and late 20th century), orchestration, alternative tunings and tuning theory, American music.

PUBLICATIONS

Books:

The Arithmetic of Listening: Tuning Theory and History for the Impractical Musician, University of Illinois Press, 2019
Charles Ives's Concord: Essays After a Sonata, University of Illinois Press, 2017
(as co-editor) The Ashgate Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music, Ashgate Press, 2013
Robert Ashley, University of Illinois Press, 2012
No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33", Yale University Press, 2010
Music Downtown: Articles from the Village Voice, 1986-2000, University of California Press, 2006
American Music in the Twentieth Century, Schirmer Books, 1997.
The Music of Conlon Nancarrow, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Scholarly Articles:

"Mikel Rouse: Postmodern Operas and Songs in Critique of Capitalism" in Mikel Rouse's The World Got Away: A Memoir, University of Illinois Press, 2024
"The Essay in American Music" in The Cambridge History of the American Essay, Jason Childs, Christ Wampole, eds., Cambridge UP, 2023
"The American Just Intonation Tradition" in The Oxford Handbook of Spectral Music, Amy Bauer, Liam Cagney, William Mason, eds., Oxford UP, 2021
Book review: George Frederick Bristow by Katherine K. Preston in American Music, October 20, 2022
"I Have to Be a Messenger to my People: A Tribute to Maria de Alvear" in Ein Konzert Ist Eine Feuerstelle: Die Komponistin Maria de Alvear (Wolke Verlag, 2021)
"Intuition Versus Algorithm in Einstein on the Beach," in Einstein on the Beach: Opera beyond Drama (Ashgate Press, 2019)
"Earle Brown: A Less Cloistered Music," in Beyond Notation: The Music of Earle Brown (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2017)
"Julius Eastman and the Conception of Organic Music" in Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music (University of Rochester Press, 2015)
"Silence in the Rearview Mirror" in Cage 100 (Osrodek Miedzukulturowyc Inicjatyw Tworzcych Rodroza, 2015)
"A Technically Definable Stream of Postminimalism, Its Characteristics, and Its Meaning," in The Ashgate Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music (Ashgate Press, 2013)
"Time at the End of the World: The Orchestral Tetralogy of John Luther Adams" in The Farthest Place: The Music of John Luther Adams (Northeastern Press, 2012)
Foreword to Silence by John Cage (50th-anniversary edition) (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2011)
Foreword to Perfect Lives by Robert Ashley (Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2011)
"Trimpin, Nancarrow, and the Transfer of Memory," in Trimpin: Contraptions for Art and Sound (Marquand Press, 2011)
"Reconstructing Dennis Johnson's November," American Music, Volume 28, Number 4, Winter 2010, pp. 481-491
"Key Eccentricity in Ben Johnston's Suite for Microtonal Piano," Journal of the Huygens-Fokker Society, Amsterdam, Fall 2009
The Longyear Lecture, in American Music, Volume 26, Number 2, Summer 2008, pp. 140-155.
"Glimpses of a Musical Future in Ben Johnston's Fourth Quartet," in 1/1 (Fall, 2007, Vol 12 No 3, pp. 23, 24, 31, 32)
"Magnificent - in a Mysterious Way: Varese's Impact on American Music," in Edgard Varese: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, Felix Meyer and Heidy Zimmermann, eds. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2006)
"John Luther Adams: Music as a Geography of the Spiritual," Foreword to Winter Music: Composing the North by John Luther Adams (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004, pp. xi-xix).
"No Escape from Heaven: John Cage as Father Figure," in David Nicholls, ed., The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, Cambridge University Press (2002)
"American Music since 1980," in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart
Preface to Essential Cowell, Dick Higgins, ed. (Kingston, NY: McPherson & Company, 2001)
"Chapter 13: New Currents Coalesce: Since the Mid-1980s," in H. Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000, pp. 363-394).
"Navigating the Infinite Web of Pitch Space," in Open Space, Issue 2, Spring 2000, pp. 67-77
"Conlon Nancarrow: Study No. 25 for Player Piano," in Settling New Scores: Music Manuscripts from the Paul Sacher Foundation, Felix Meyer, ed. (Mainz: Schott Musik International, 1998, pp. 171-173).
"Subversive Prophet: Henry Cowell as Theorist and Critic," in The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium, David Nicholls, ed., Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.
"La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano," in Perspectives of New Music, Winter 1993 (Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 134-162)
"The Outer Edge of Consonance: The Development of La Monte Young's Tuning Systems," in Sound and Light: La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1996, pp. 152-190).
"Downtown Beats for the 1990s" (Analyses of music by Rhys Chatham, Mikel Rouse, Michael Gordon, Larry Polansky, Ben Neill), in Contemporary Music Review, Summer 1993
"The Percussion Music of John J. Becker," in Percussive Notes Journal, March 1984 (vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 26-41)
"Music-Theater Lite for a Dark Age," in Theatre Magazine, Volume 30, Number 2, pp. 24-33
Biographical entries on Robert Ashley , Eve Beglarian, Henry Brant, Wendy Mae Chambers, Nic Collins, Michael Gordon, Guy Klucevsek, David Lang, Meredith Monk, Conlon Nancarrow, Ben Neill, Mikel Rouse, David Soldier, Bernadette Speach, Lois V Vierk, Julia Wolfe, Evan Ziporyn in The New Grove Dictionary of Music, 2001; updated 2011

Compact Discs:

Custer and Sitting Bull (plus So Many Little Dyings, Scenario), New World 80801-2
Hyperchromatica Other Minds, OM 1025-2
Chicago Spiral on Einmal, Da Horte Ich Ihn, Ensemble Ptyx, Vous Ne Revez Pas Encore
Earth-Preserving Chant on Walk in Beauty, Emanuele Arciuli, Innova 255
Echoes of Nothing on Beyond 12: Reinventing the Piano, Aron Kallay, Microfest Records MF3
War Is Just a Racket on A Sweeter Music, Sarah Cahill, Other Minds OM-1022-2
Long Night on Minimal Piano Collection Volumes X-XX, Jeroen Van Veen and friends, Brilliant Classics 9171
The Planets - Relache ensemble performing, Meyer Media MM10014
Sunken City on The Minimalists - Orkest de Volharding performing, Geoffrey Douglas Madge soloist, with works by Reich, Andriessen, Adams, Riley, Lang, Mode records 214/215
Private Dances (Private Dances, Time Does Not Exist, Hovenweep, On Reading Emerson, The Day Revisited) (Sarah Cahill, pianist; Da Capo ensemble) - New Albion 137
Nude Rolling Down an Escalator (Texarkana, Nude Rolling Down an Escalator, Petty Larceny, Bud Ran Back Out, Cosmic Boogie-Woogie, Despotic Waltz, Folk Dance for Henry Cowell, The Waiting, Tango da Chiesa, Unquiet Night) - New World 80633-2
Long Night (Sarah Cahill, pianist) - Cold Blue CB0019
Custer's Ghost (including Fractured Paradise, How Miraculous Things Happen, Superparticular Woman, So Many Little Dyings, Ghost Town, Custer and Sitting Bull), Monroe Street msm 60104
Hesapa ki Lakhota ki Thawapi on Relache Ensemble: Pick It Up, Monroe Street msm 60102
Snake Dance No. 2 on Ten Years of Essential Music, Monroe Street msm 60101
Desert Sonata on Lois Svard [pianist]: Other Places, Lovely Music LCD 3052
Ghost Town, on Century XXI USA1 - Electronics, New Tone nt 6730

SELECTED AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS

Commission from Contemporaneous to write Cap Rock Wind, 2016
Commission from James Bagwell and the Cincinnati May Festival Youth Chorus to write In Silence, 2015
Commission from pianist Emanuele Arciuli to write Earth-Preserving Chant, 2010
Commission from pianist Sarah Cahill to write War Is Just a Racket, 2008
Commission from Orkest de Volharding to write Sunken City, 2007
Commission from the "Voyages: Montreal-New York" festival to write Composure, 2007
Commission from the Seattle Chamber Players to write Kierkegaard, Walking
$40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 2007
Commission from pianist Sarah Cahill to write On Reading Emerson, 2006
Commission from the Dessoff Choir to write My father moved through dooms of love, 2005
American Music Center Letter of Distinction, 2003
ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for criticism, 2002
Commission from the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir to write Transcendental Sonnets for chorus and orchestra, 2002
Commission from St. Luke's Orchestra Chamber Series to write Hovenweep for quintet, 2001.
Commission from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Endowment for the Arts to write The Planets, Book II, for the Relache ensemble, 2001.
Stagebill Award for music criticism, 1999.
National Endowment for the Arts Individual Composer's Fellowship to write Custer and Sitting Bull, 1996-97
Music in Motion commission to write The Planets, Book I, for the Relache ensemble, 1993-94.
Commission from pianist Lois Svard to write Desert Sonata, 1994.
Commission from the American Ritual Theater Company to write I'itoi Variations, 1985.

RELATED EXPERIENCE

Vice President of the Charles Ives Society, 2010 to the present
Co-Director of the Second International Conference on Minimalist Music, University of Missouri at Kansas City, Sept. 2-6, 2009
Program annotator for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, 2004-2007
Columnist for Chamber Music magazine (1998-2010); bimonthly column, "American Composer."
New Music Columnist for The Village Voice, New York (1986-2005); weekly column plus feature stories.
Director, N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago (Feb. 1984-Feb. 1985)
Administrative Assistant, New Music America festival for Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (Sept. 1981 to Aug. 1982)
More than 2500 articles published in the following additional newspapers and periodicals: American Music Box, American Theosophist, Art Forum, ASCAP in Action, AtlAntica, Chicago Sun-Times (1986-87), Chicago Tribune (1984-85), Dialogue, Fanfare (1985-92), Musical America, New Art Examiner, New York Times (1986 and 1998-present), Opera News, Pulse (1998-2001), and Chicago Reader (1983-89); program notes for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, and American Symphony Chamber Orchestra (regular annotator since 1997); liner notes for discs on the New World, Lovely Music, Hat Art, Epic, Disques Montaignes, Centaur, O.O., CRI, Monroe Street, Starkland, Koch International, and Albany labels.

SELECTED RECENT LECTURES AND SYMPOSIA

"George Crumb's Personal Crystallization of American Postmodern Trends," University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 10, 2017
"Fascinating Rhythm: John C. Adams as Metametric Pioneer," Inside the (G)earbox: John Adams at 70 festival, UCLA, March 4, 2017
"How Ives Composed: The Geiringer Lecture", a talk on Ives's First Piano Sonata presented at the University of Santa Barbara, Nov. 4, 2015
Elodie Lauten as Postminimalist Improviser," at the Minimalism conference, Helsinki, Sept., 2015
“Music in the Time of Inequality,” Colloquio PAC (Produccion Artistica Contemporanea) in Ciudad de Oaxaca, Sept. 11-13, 2015
"How the 13th Harmonic Saved My Sorry Ass," at the microtonal conference at the University of Pittsburgh, Feb. 28, 2015
"The Uneasy, Unarticulated State of American Music," delivered at the ISCM Conference in Vienna, Nov. 13, 2013
"Robert Ashley as Minimalist," at the Minimalism conference, Long Beach, Sept. 2013
A Talk on John Cage's 4'33", delivered at the New World Symphony's Cage Festival, Feb. 7, 2013
"A Less Cloistered Music": Keynote address to the Beyond Notation: An Earle Brown Festival at Northeastern Univ., Jan. 18, 2013
Keynote Address for the Harry Partch Conference at New England Conservatory, Boston, Sept. 19, 2012
"Silence in the Rearview Mirror," at Cage Centennial Conference, Lublin, Poland, May 17, 2012
Keynote address for the Conlon Nancarrow Centennial Conference, Southbank Center, London, April 22, 2012
"In Dispraise of Efficiency," at the University of Pittsburgh's Feldman mini-festival, November 4, 2011
"The Boredom of Eventfulness," Keynote address for the Third International Conference of Minimalist Music, University of Leuven, Belgium, October 12, 2011
Lecture on Morton Feldman at the American Sublime festival for Morton Feldman, Philadelphia, June 5, 2011
"Living in Ben Johnston's Expanded Universe," keynote address for the Microtonal Weekend, Wright State University, March 13, 2010
Reconstructing [Dennis Johnson's] November," at the Second International Conference on Minimalist Music in Kansas City in 2009
"Must a Song Always Be a Song?," keynote address for the Charles Ives Vocal Marathon, Wesleyan University, January 29, 2009
Keynote address, Sacramento State New Music Festival, November 6, 2008
The Longyear Lecture, University of Kentucky, February 7, 2008
"In Dispraise of Efficiency," at the Seattle Art Museum, January 26, 2008
"From Hits to Niches," keynote address for the Canadian New Music Network, Winnipeg, February 10, 2007
Keynote address to The Extensible Toy Piano Project, Clark University, November 4, 2005
Lecture, "Charles Ives' Influence on Younger American Composers," March 19, 2004 at the MaerzMusik Festival, Berlin
Lectures on American music, alternate tunings, and my own music, January 2004; Dartington College of the Arts, Totnes, England
Lectures on recent American music, Moscow Conservatory, Oct. 23, 2002; Pro Arte Institute in St. Petersburg, Oct. 30, 2002
Lectures on the history of tuning and intonation, American avant-garde music, and analysis of the works of the composer Conlon Nancarrow, at Goldsmiths College, London, March 1 - 16, 2001.
Lecture on Nancarrow, Dartington School of the Arts, Totnes, England, March 2, 2001.
Lecture on the notation of Downtown chamber music at the Chamber Music America conference in New York City, January 14, 2001.
"Navigating the Infinite Web of Pitch Space," at MicroFest, a festival of microtonal music at Harvey Mudd College in Los Angeles, April 7, 2001.
Participation in a panel, "Death or Transfiguration: The Future of Publishing," at Toronto 2000, the conference of musicological organizations in Toronto on November 2, 2000.
Paper, "Mikel Rouse and the Simulation of Normalcy" at a postmodernism conference at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, May 11, 2000.
"Downtown Music: An Ancient Tradition" at the conference of the Music Theory Society of New York State, at NYU, April 8, 2000.
A week-long residency at Oberlin Conservatory , lecturing on American music, alternate tunings, and criticism as a profession, November 8-12, 1999.

SELECTED RECENT PERFORMANCES

Earth-Preserving Chant played by Alexander Gadjiev, Greenway Studio, Canberra, October 16, 2022
Scene from a Marriage played by Elizabeth Smalt and Keiko Shichijo, KlankKleurFestival, Amsterdam, September 30, 2022
Trois Nocturnes Ambiants played by Francois Mardirossian, Lyons, June 25, 2022
Summer Serenade played by Huw Morgan, St. Thomas the Martyr, Bristol, May 14, 2022
Surrealities played by Therese Malengreau, Superspectives Festival, Le Lac, Brussels, May 13, 2022
Cap Rock Wind played by Contemporaneous at Roulette, NYC, April 11, 2017
Featured composer at "Embrace the Universe" festival, Bari, Italy, May 9-12, 2016; performances of Sang Plato's Ghost," Serenity Meditation, Earth-Preserving Chant,, "Faith" from Transcendental Sonnets
Proenca, sung by Michelle Allen MacIntire with ensemble, Feb. 20, 2016, All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City; at Bard College, March 2, 2016
Featured composer at the Symposium of Contemporary Music, Illinois Wesleyan, Bloomington, Illinois, Feb. 13, 2016; performances of Transcendentalist Songs and Implausible Sketches
Features composer at the International Conference on Minimalist Music, Helsinki, Finland, Sept. 24-26, 2015; performances of Unquiet Night and other works
Featured composer at the Open Space festival, University of Northern Colorado, March 29-30, 2012
Video of The Planets featured at the Videoformes festival, France, March 14-18, 2012
Kierkegaard, Walking by the Ptyx ensemble, as part of the "d'apres Satie" festival, Tours, December 1, 2011
John Sanborn's video to my The Planets premieres at the Mill Valley Film Festival, San Rafael California, Oct. 12, 2011
Featured composer at Central Michigan University, March 29, 2011
Featured composer at Other Minds festival, San Francisco, March 3-5, 2011
Featured composer at Sam Houston State University annual new-music festival, April 15-17, 2010
Transcendental Sonnets by the Dessoff Choir, James Bagwell conducting, Merkin Hall, New York, March 6, 2010
Mark Morris Dance Group performs dance Looky to five Gann Disklavier pieces, Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 23, 25, 26, 27, 2010
Composure for four electric guitars at "Voyages: Montreal-New York" festival, Theatre la Chapelle, Montreal, April 4, 2008
Kierkegaard, Walking for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, by the Seattle Chamber Players at the Other Minds Festival, San Francisco, March 3, 2011; the Icebreaker festival, Jan. 26, 2008; the Sacramento State Univ. Festival of American Music, Nov. 6 and 9, 2008
Sunken City (Concerto for Piano and Winds: In Memoriam New Orleans), by the Orkest de Volharding with Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Kassa de Doelen, Rotterdam, Oct. 30, 2007; at the Felix Meritis, Amsterdam, Oct. 31, 2007; at the Concert en Gehoorzaal , Middelburg, Nov. 4, 2007; and by the Williams College Symphonic Winds, Williams College, May 9, 2008
My father moved through dooms of love for chorus, violin, piano, by the Dessoff Choir, James Bagwell cond., Merkin Hall, New York, March 10, 2007
One-composer concert, University of Kentucky (Olana, Snake Dance No. 2, Last Chance Sonata, On Reading Emerson, Charing Cross, So Many Little Dyings), Feb. 7, 2008
One-composer concert at Mendelssohnsaal, Hochschule fur Musik und theater, Harmburg, October 25, 2007
One-composer concert at Mendelssohnsaal, Hochschule fur Musik und theater, Harmburg, October 25, 2007
Microtonal concert at the Trinity College, Dublin (Custer and Sitting Bull, So Many Little Dyings, Charing Cross) November 7, 2007
Mark Morris Dance Group performs dance Looky to five Gann Disklavier pieces, Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, May 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 2007
One-composer concert, University of Costa Rica (Custer and Sitting Bull, Disklavier pieces), May 25, 2005
Composer-in-Residence, Dartington College, Totnes, England, Jan. 7-24, 2004
Cinderella's Bad Magic premiered at the Alernativa festival in Moscow, Russia, on Oct. 26, 2002, James Bagwell conducting; and performed at the Beloselski-Belozerski Palace in St. Petersburg, Nov. 1, 2002; along with Custer and Sitting Bull.
Transcendental Sonnets, performed by the Indiana Symphonic Choir on Oct. 19, 2002 in Indianapolis, Eric Stark conducting.
Performances of Custer and Sitting Bull, New World Coming, and eight Disklavier pieces at the Mini-Max Festival at the Powerhouse, Brisbane, Australia, on Nov. 3, 2002; featured American composer along with William Duckworth.
The Planets, Book II, commissioned and performed by the Relache ensemble, one movement in Philadelphia on May 11-13, 2001.
Custer and Sitting Bull at the Ought One Festival of Nonpop in Montpelier, Vermont, organized by the well-known Kalvos & Damian Web Site, August 26, 2001.
New York premiere of my Time Does Not Exist by pianist Emily Manzo at Christ and St. Stephen's Church, April 23, 2001.
Custer and Sitting Bull at the MicroFest at Harvey Mudd College in Los Angeles, April 7, 2001.
Hovenweep, commissioned and performed by the St. Luke's Orchestra Chamber Ensemble at the Dia Arts Foundation in New York City February 3, 2001; repeated at Bard College by the Da Capo ensemble on April 11.
One of the three featured composers at the University of New Mexico Composers Symposium in Albuquerque, performing my one-man opera Custer and Sitting Bull, and presenting three pieces for Disklavier; March 26-27, 2001.
Custer and Sitting Bull, performed at the Kitchen in New York City, in a theatrical version directed by Jeffrey Sichel, with visual and lighting design by Andrew Hill; December 6, 7, 8, 9, 2000.
One-person concert at Bard College: pianist Sarah Cahill premiered my Time Does Not Exist and Private Dances, Sara Phillips performed my "Last Chance" Sonata, and I premiered Texarkana and Nude Rolling Down an Escalator for Disklavier, as well as playing my piano piece Windows to Infinity; November 16, 2000.
Featured composer at the Storm King Music Festival, June 30, July 1, and July 6, 2000; I performed Custer and Sitting Bull.
Concert of my electronic music, including Custer and Sitting Bull, at the Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT) in San Francisco, April 13, 2000.

References upon request


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