George Emanuel Lewis (born July 14, 1952) is an American composer, performer, and scholar of experimental music.[1] He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, when he joined the organization at the age of 19.[2] He is renowned for his work as an improvising trombonist and considered a pioneer of computer music, which he began pursuing in the late 1970s; in the 1980s he created Voyager, an improvising software he has used in interactive performances.[2] Lewis's many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship[1] and a Guggenheim Fellowship,[3] and his book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music[4] received the American Book Award.[1] Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University.[5]
Lewis was born July 14, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois.[6] Lewis's father, George Thomas Lewis, was a postal worker who studied electronics under the GI Bill and had a deep love of jazz music; his mother, Cornelia Griffith Lewis, liked blues, soul, and R&B singers.[6][4]:281
Lewis began his education at a public elementary school, but he was one of many Black students who could only attend half-days, allegedly to relieve "overcrowding"; this was widely understood to be an excuse to enforce de facto segregation under superintendent Benjamin Willis, whose policies led to the 1963 Chicago Public Schools boycott.[7][4]:281 An African American teacher convinced Lewis's parents to enroll him at the University of Chicago Laboratory School, where he started classes at age 9.[4]:281 Lewis attended the Lab School from 1961 until his graduation in 1969.[8]
His parents wanted him to learn an instrument as a way to make friends, and Lewis chose the trombone, which was paid for in monthly installments.[4]:281 He played in the school orchestra and concert band, took private lessons from University of Chicago graduate students, and as a teenager joined the school's new jazz band, run by jazz historian Frank Tirro (then working on his PhD) and Dean Hey.[4]:282 In the late 1960s, classmate Ray Anderson took Lewis to hear Fred Anderson at an AACM concert, and Lewis first heard the Art Ensemble of Chicago at another concert on his high school campus.[4]:282
Education and joining the AACM
Lewis was accepted to Yale University in 1969, and at age 17 began his studies in prelaw.[4]:282 He also took music theory classes and met a number of artists in the community, but began to lose interest in school after his sophomore year and decided to take a break.[4]:283
In 1971, during his time off in Chicago, Lewis heard some musicians practicing together near his parents' house; he introduced himself, and met Muhal Richard Abrams, John Shenoy Jackson, Steve Galloway, and Pete Cosey.[4]:283 Lewis was invited to check out a show at the Pumpkin Room, but misunderstood the invitation and brought his trombone; they let him play anyway, as part of a group that also included Joseph Jarman, Kalaparusha, and Steve McCall.[4]:284 Lewis worried about his performance, but McCall invited him to play another concert; at rehearsal, he was introduced to Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors, Sabu Toyozumi, Aaron Dodd, and Douglas Ewart.[4]:285 Lewis became more involved with the AACM, and Jackson encouraged him to apply to join the group. After his acceptance, Lewis was voted reading secretary and began taking minutes at weekly meetings.[4]:285 Lewis regularly played late gigs with the Muhal Richard Abrams Big Band during his year off, and in the daytime held a United Steelworkers union job at Illinois Slag and Ballast Company.[4]:303
Lewis graduated from Yale in 1974 with a degree in philosophy.[8]
Career
George E. Lewis in 2006.
In 1976, Lewis released Solo Trombone Record to great acclaim.[9]
Lewis has long been active in creating and performing with interactive computer systems, most notably his software Voyager, which "listens" and reacts to live performers.[2]
From 1988-1990, Lewis collaborated with video artist Don Ritter to create performances of interactive music and interactive video controlled by Lewis's improvised trombone.[13]
In 1992, Lewis collaborated with Canadian artist Stan Douglas on the video installation Hors-champs, featuring Lewis in an improvisation of Albert Ayler's "Spirits Rejoice" with musicians Douglas Ewart, Kent Carter and Oliver Johnson; the installation was featured at documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany.[14]
Lewis is featured extensively in Unyazi of the Bushveld (2005), directed by Aryan Kaganof,[16] a documentary about the first symposium of electronic music held in Africa.[17] Lewis gave an invited keynote lecture and performance at NIME-06, the sixth international conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, which was held at IRCAM, Paris, in June 2006.[18]
In 2008, Lewis published a book-length history of the AACM titled A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press).[19] Lewis later wrote an opera based on the book, titling it Afterword: The AACM (as) Opera; the work premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2015.[20]
Lewis (compositions, live electronic processing, live electronics and spatialization performance) with large ensembles (Ensemble Erik Satie, Wet Ink, Vancouver Olympiad)[34][35]
Lewis, George E. (2021). "'Is Our Machines Learning Yet?' Machine Learning's Challenge to Improvisation and the Aesthetic". In de Assis, Paulo; Giudici, Paolo (eds.). Machinic Assemblages of Desire: Deleuze and Artistic Research 3. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2020). ""Foreword: On the Art of Becoming"". In MacDonald, Raymond A.R.; Wilson, Graeme B. (eds.). The Art of Becoming: How Group Improvisation Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.vii–xx. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2018). "Toni Dove's Nonmodern Ontologies". In McLendon, Matthew (ed.). Toni Dove: Embodied Machines. New York: Scala Arts Publishers & John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. pp.31–41. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2018). "Why Do We Want Our Computers To Improvise?". In McLean, Alex; Dean, Roger T. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.123–130. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2017). "The Sound of Terry Adkins". In Berry, Ian (ed.). Terry Adkins: Recital. New York: Prestel Publishing. pp.105–129. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2017). "From Network Bands to Ubiquitous Computing: Rich Gold and the Social Aesthetics of Interactivity". In Born, Georgina; Lewis, Eric; Straw, Will (eds.). Improvisation and Social Aesthetics. Durham and London: Duke University Press. pp.91–109. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2009). ""Interactivity and Improvisation"". In Dean, Roger T. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.457–66. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (May 2008). Lewis, George E. (ed.). "Foreword: After Afrofuturism". Journal of the Society for American Music. Special issue on Technology and Black Music in the Americas. 2 (2): 139–153. doi:10.1017/S1752196308080048. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2008). "Stan Douglas's Suspiria: Genealogies of Recombinant Narrativity". In Douglas, Stan (ed.). Past Imperfect: Works 1986-2007. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag. pp.42–53. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2007). "Living with Creative Machines: An Improvisor Reflects". In Everett, Anna; Wallace, Amber J. (eds.). AfroGEEKS: Beyond the Digital Divide. Santa Barbara: Center for Black Studies Research. pp.83–99. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. (2005). "The Secret Love between Interactivity and Improvisation, or Missing in Interaction: A Prehistory of Computer Interactivity". In Fähndrich, Walter (ed.). Improvisation V: 14 Beiträge. Winterthur: Amadeus. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
Lewis, George E. "Leben mit kreativen Maschinen: Reflexionen eines improvisierenden Musikers". In Knauer, Wolfram (ed.). Improvisieren: Darmstädter Beiträge zur Jazzforschung, Band 8 (in German). Hofheim: Wolke Verlag. pp.123–144.
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Casserley, Lawrence. "Person to... person?" at the Wayback Machine(archived May 17, 2006) Interview with George Lewis, discussing computer music and other topics, including improvisation and Voyager
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