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EZRA SIMS 229 Hurley St.
#2, Cambridge, Mass. 02141
management
Rosalie Calabrese
Box 20580 Park West Station
New York, N.Y., 10025-1521
performing rights
affiliation BROADCAST MUSIC INC.
publishers
FROG PEAK
MUSIC
P.O. Box 1052
Lebanon, N.H. 03763
DIAPASON PRESS
Corpus
Microtonale
Riddersborch 25
3992BG Houten
The Netherlands
compositions (full listings at compositions link)
1961-
57+ 72-note microtonal — orchestral,
chamber, vocal. Performances in Boston, New
York, San Francisco, Chicago, Tokyo, Darmstadt, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Haarlem,
etc.
4 quarter-tone — chamber, vocal. Performances in San Francisco, New York,
Salzburg, Boston, etc.
1959-77 29 tape pieces — 25 dance (Boston, N.Y.), 3
concert (Boston), 1 TV (Tokyo)
1951-75 35 12-note
— orchestra, theater music, vocal, chamber,
piano. San Francisco, Boston, New York,
etc.
recordings CRI
784 String quartet #2 (1962)
Elegie nach Rilke
Third Quartet
CRI 643 Quintet
Night
Piece
Flight
Solo In Four Movements
Concert Piece
CRI 578 Come Away
NORTHEASTERN NR 224 All Done
From Memory
Two for One
—
and, as I was saying
…
Sextet
CRI 186 Chamber Cantata on Chinese Poems
awards, grants, etc. FULBRIGHT
SENIOR RESEARCH GRANT, 1992
AMERICAN
ACADEMY OF ARTS & LETTERS Award,
1985
KOUSSEVITSKY FOUNDATION
Commission, 1983
MASS. ARTISTS FOUNDATION
Fellowship, 1979
NEA Fellowships, 1976, 1978
MARTHA BAIRD ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION Recording Grant, 1977
GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION Fellowship,
1962
COMPOSERS FORUM, NYC, 1959
MacDOWELL COLONY; DJERASSI, WURLITZER, CAMARGO FNDTNS
lectures, seminars Hamburger
Musikgespräch, 1994
Mozarteum,
Salzburg (Gastdozent, Richter Herf Institut, 1993-94)
2. Naturton-Symposium, Heidelberg, 1992
3. & 4 Int’l Symposia on Microtonal Music, Salzburg
Northeastern University
Schlumberger-Doll
Research
Webster
University 23d Annual Contemporary Music
Festival, Illinois Wesleyan, 1977
International Christian University
odd jobs President, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, 1977-81
Member, Theory Faculty, New England Conservatory, 1976-78
Music Director, New England
Dinosaur Dance Theater, 1968-78
General dogsbody, Harvard University
Music Library, 1958-62, 1965-74
School teacher, display designer, steel worker, mail clerk, 1948-58
commissions
ARIZONA FRIENDS of CHAMBER
MUSIC String
Quartet #5
KOTO
TAKASHI Kumo
sudare
CHRISTINA ASCHER & CHRISTOPH von ERFFA If I Told Him
Encores: Three Parlor Songs
INTERNATIONAL
MICROTONE SOCIETY, BERN Invocation
TED
MOOK Duo (1992)
AEDM in mem.
Solo in Four Movements
ANNE BLACK/ PRO ARTE ORCH. of BOSTON Concert Piece
HANNEKE
PROVILLY Flight
IAN GREITZER Quintet (1987)
ARIEL The Conversions
NEWBAND Brief Elegies
NEC JUNIOR YOUTH CHAMBER
ORCHESTRA
Pictures for an Institution
KOUSSEVITZKY
FOUNDATION String Quartet #4
DINOSAUR ANNEX Stanzas
Night
Piece
Quartet (1982)
This Way To the Egress
JANET
PACKER All Done From Memory
AARON
PICHT — and, as I was saying …
KIJIMA MASATAKA Midorigaoka
GOETHE
INSTITUT of BOSTON Elegie — nach Rilke
CAMBRIDGE
ARTS COUNCIL The Owl and the Pussycat
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Longfellow
Sparrow
BOSTON
MUSICA VIVA String Quartet #2 (1962)
Phenomena
Musing
and Reminiscence
KEVIN
DEWEY … including the …
NEW ENGLAND DINOSAUR DANCE
COMPANY Where the Wild Things Are
CAROL
BECKWITH Museum Piece
ELINA
MOONEY Elina’s Piece
CLIFF
KEUTER Warts & All
Real Toads
INA
HAHN Cat’s Cradle
TOBY
ARMOUR After Lyle
Ground Cover
5
Toby Minutes
Interlope
Clement
Wenceslaus …
A
Frank Overture…
McDowell’s
Fault
Antimatter
THE
ENDICOTT FUND Third quartet
CATHY
BERBERIAN Cantata III
NHK-TV Music for Sakoku
THE ACTORS WORKSHOP (S.F.) The
Ticklish Acrobat
WELLAND LATHROP Masque
ARCH
LAUTERER Music for The Trojan Women
general background
born 16 January 1928
Birmingham,
Ala.
studies Mills College MA 1956
US Army
Language School Diploma
(Chinese) 1953
Yale University School of Music BMus 1952
Birmingham
Conservatory of Music 1945-48
Birmingham Southern College BA
1947
principal teachers Darius Milhaud,
Quincy Porter, G. Ackley Brower, Leon Kirchner
microtones
Since 1961, most of what that I’ve done — all my major pieces that
haven’t been tape music — has been microtonal.
At first, it was º-tone, but from 1964 it has been 72-note, using at any
moment one transposition or another of
an assymetrical mode of 18 or 24 pitches drawn from a 72-note division of the
octave, much as Tonal music used a 7-note mode drawn from a 12-note
chromatic. The mode consist of a 8
pitches of superior importance, the
8-15th harmonics of the tonic of the moment, plus 10 (or 16)
‘chromatic’ pitches also drawn from its harmonic series. The 72-note division permits an all-but-exact
description of the sequialteran succession of Just ratios making up the mode
(25/24 30/24 [or in the alternate version: 33/32 5/4] followed by 21/16
31/16), while retaining the conceptual and modulatory convenience of a closed
cyclic notation. I trust the performers
naturally to play as near Just perfection as their musicality permits, but
sometimes it helps to remind them.
computers In 1988, I began using David Rayna’s RTMPII
program and synthesizer to make demo tapes of new pieces and produce the electronic
parts for the three pieces that have them.
I consulted with
Stephen Smoliar on his EUTERPE system, developed in the AI Lab, MIT. The electronic parts of Elina’s Piece were made using it, as well as a transcription of From an Oboe Quartet.
As
programmer for Harvard Music Library, I worked with Mary Lou Little and Helen
Black in the development of the MARC format for music scores and recordings,
since amended as published by the Library of Congress.
electronic music 1988 - Three electro-acoustic pieces using RTMP II.
1959, 1968-1977 Tape pieces, mainly for dance and theater, largely tape collage or
musique concrete or a combination of the two (combine tapes.)
1962-63 For several months observer and composer at
the electronic music studio of NHK Tokyo — Composed Music for Sakoku there.