Mark Applebaum

Last updated
Mark Applebaum in 2012 Mark Applebaum at TEDx Stanford (7231657568).jpg
Mark Applebaum in 2012

Mark Applebaum (born 1967 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American composer and full professor of music composition and theory at Stanford University. [1]

Contents

Biography

Applebaum received his PhD in music composition from the University of California, San Diego where he studied with Brian Ferneyhough, Joji Yuasa, Rand Steiger, and Roger Reynolds. Prior to Stanford, he taught at UCSD, Mississippi State University, and Carleton College.

Applebaum has received commissions from Betty Freeman, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Fromm Foundation, the Kronos Quartet, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Spoleto USA, the Vienna Modern Festival, Antwerp’s Champ D’Action, Festival ADEvantgarde in Munich, Zeitgeist, Manufacture (Tokyo), the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Jerome Foundation, and the American Composers Forum.

As a jazz pianist, Applebaum has performed around the world, including a solo recital in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso that was sponsored by the American Embassy. In 1994, he received the jazz prize of the Southern California Jazz Society. [2]

Music

Applebaum's solo, chamber, choral, orchestral, operatic, and electro-acoustic work has been performed through North and South America, Europe, Australia, Africa, and Asia. His music has been described as mercurial, high detailed, discipline, and exacting, but also features improvisational and whimsical aspects. His inspiration has been drawn from jazz pioneers and maverick composers such as Conlon Nancarrow and Harry Partch, who found it necessary to use or invent unusual instruments to realize their artistic visions. [2]

In 1990, Applebaum began building unique electroacoustic instruments. One of these instruments, which Applebaum refers to as the "Mouseketier," consists of threaded rods, nails, combs, doorstops, springs, squeaky wheels, ratchets, and a toilet tank flotation bulb. His first instrument, the “Mousetrap,” is used in Mousetrap Music which features a recording of sound-sculpture improvisations. The objects on the instruments are plucked, scratched, bowed, and modified by a battery of live electronics. [2]

Many of Applebaum's compositions are composed of visual and theatrical elements. Echolalia requires the rapid execution of 22 dadaist rituals, Straitjacket includes performers drawing on amplified easels, and Aphasia requires its performer to synchronize choreographed hand gestures to tape. [2]

Selected works

Orchestral music

Choral music and opera

Works for symphonic wind ensemble and jazz orchestra

Chamber music

Tape music

Improvisation works

Discography

External video
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Boredom, The Real Secret Behind Innovation, Mark Applebaum, published by Stanford University, TEDx Talk

Related Research Articles

Musical ensemble Group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name

A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instruments, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Other music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds and percussion.

Chamber music Form of classical music composed for a small group of instruments

Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part. However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances.

Franz Danzi

Franz Ignaz Danzi was a German cellist, composer and conductor, the son of the Italian cellist Innocenz Danzi (1730–1798) and brother of the noted singer Franzeska Danzi. Danzi lived at a significant time in the history of European music. His career, spanning the transition from the late Classical to the early Romantic styles, coincided with the origin of much of the music that lives in our concert halls and is familiar to contemporary classical-music audiences. As a young man he knew Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom he revered; he was a contemporary of Ludwig van Beethoven, about whom he — like many of his generation — had strong but mixed feelings; and he was a mentor for the young Carl Maria von Weber, whose music he respected and promoted.

Milton Babbitt American composer

Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.

A piano sextet is a composition for piano and five other musical instruments, or a group of six musicians who perform such works. There is no standard grouping of instruments with that name, and compared to the string quartet or piano quintet literature, relatively few such compositions exist. The best-known piano sextet is probably the Sextet by Poulenc, one of the pinnacles of the wind and piano repertoire. Chausson's Concert is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of French strings and piano chamber music literature.

Arnold Atkinson Cooke was a British composer.

Vinny Golia is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to music:

Chen Yi is a Chinese-American violinist and composer of contemporary classical music. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts (M.A.) in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Chen was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Si Ji, and has received awards from the Koussevistky Music Foundation and American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School and in 2012, she was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019.

Michael Tree Musical artist

Michael Tree, born Michael Applebaum, was an American violist.

This is a list of pages with repertoire for stringed instruments.

Robert Carl American composer

Robert Carl is an American composer who currently resides in Hartford, Connecticut, where he is chair of the composition program at the Hartt School, University of Hartford.

Ned McGowan is an American composer and flutist based in Amsterdam. Ned holds degrees in composition from the Royal Conservatory Den Haag and in flute from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

The Melos Ensemble is a group of musicians who started in 1950 in London to play chamber music in mixed instrumentation of string instruments, wind instruments and others. The ensemble's reputation for excellence has encouraged composers to write music exploring these resources. Benjamin Britten composed the chamber music for his War Requiem for the Melos Ensemble and conducted the group in the first performance in Coventry.

Erich Urbanner is an Austrian composer and teacher.

José Luis Turina

José Luis Turina is a Spanish composer, grandson of Joaquín Turina.

Ketil Hvoslef is a Norwegian composer. He is the son of composer Harald Sæverud.

Curtis Curtis-Smith, better known as C. Curtis-Smith or C.C. Smith, was a modernist American composer and pianist.

References

  1. "Faculty - Department of Music". Music.stanford.edu. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 James Bash