Allen Strange
Articles about Allen Strange:
Allen Strange Memorial Service
A memorial service for electro-acoustic composer and author Allen Strange has been scheduled:
A Celebration of Life
In The Memory Of John Allen Strange
4:00 pm Saturday, September 13th 2008
Mexican Heritage Plaza
1700 Alum Rock Ave
San Jose, Ca 95116 map
The Strange family would like to invite you to a celebration of life in the memory of Allen Strange. We will be gathering at the San Jose Mexican Heritage Plaza. This facility seems to provide the perfect atmosphere for Allen’s remembrance.
Formal events were not a favorite of Allen’s so this will be casual.
Tie-dyed shirts, shorts and sandals are perfectly acceptable!
There will be an open mic for people to speak, sing or play a tune in Allen’s memory. Appetizers will be available, Mexican of course, as well as beer and wine. This is an open event for anyone who wishes to join us. If you know someone that may be interested, please feel free to pass along the information.
Please RSVP at Allen’s blog.
If anybody wishes to help with this event it would be greatly appreciated.
Please feel free to email Pat at: patstrange1 at gmail.com
via Matrix
Allen Strange, 1942-2008
Electro-acoustic composer and author Allen Strange died last week at the age of 64.While Strange was probably best known to a generation of musicians as the author of one of the definitive books on electronic music – Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls – he also was very active as a composer and performer of electro-acoustic music.
“Allen’s performances incorporated some very bizarre things,” said Mark Grey, a sound designer who studied under Mr. Strange. “You’d have someone with a lawn mower on stage next to a string quartet while someone else in the corner was processing it all through a computer, sitting in a lawn chair.”"Allen,” said Grey, “could articulate the absurd so well that it just made sense.”
You can preview Allen Strange’s Flying Pigs below.
From his official bio:
He studied composition with Michalsky at State University, Fullerton (BA, MA 1967) and later with Erickson, Partch, Gaburo and Oliveros (composition and electronic media) at the University of California, San Diego (1967–8, 1970–71).
He received two grants from the San Jose State University Foundation (1969 and 1974) for research into electronic music and in 1970 became professor of music and director of the electronic music studios at the university. In 1973 he attended Chowning’s music seminar at Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Center.
Strange was one of the leading authorities on analogue electronic music; his Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls (1972) is now a classic text. He also wrote Programming and Meta-Programming the Electro-Organism (1974), the operations manual for the Buchla Music Easel and has documented the 200 Series synthesizers made by Buchla.
He co-founded two performance groups, Biome (1967–72), in order to make use of the EMS Synthi, and, with Buchla in 1974, the Electronic Weasel Ensemble. He was president of the International Computer Music Association (1993–8) and has appeared as a guest artist-lecturer throughout the world. With his wife, Patricia, they have recently published The Contemporary Violin: Extended Performance Techniques.
Strange composed for live electronic instrumental ensembles, for live and taped electronics with voices and acoustic instruments, and for the theatre; most of his works for acoustic instruments require extended performance techniques.
He was interested in linear tuning systems (as in The Hairbreath Ring Screamers, 1969, and Second Book of Angels, 1979), spatial distribution of sound (Heart of Gold, 1982, and Velocity Studies, 1983), the isolation of timbre as a musical parameter, and composing for groups of like instruments or voices.
Elements of vaudeville, rock-and-roll, country-and-western music, and the guitar techniques of Les Paul are found in his works. His theatre pieces employ various media including film, slides, and lighting effects; he produced a series of such works in collaboration with the playwright and director Robert Jenkins, of which the most important are Jack and the Beanstalk (1979) and The Ghost Hour (1981), an audio drama. In the mid-1980s, Strange became interested in alternate tuning systems. Read more…
