Role

:

Composer  

Country

:

United States of America

Birth

:

January 27, 1952 in Portland, ME

Genre

:

Avant-Garde

 

 

Chamber

 

 

Keyboard

 

Peter Garland is an American composer who was born on November 25, 1952, in Portland, Maine. He grew up in a musical family, with his father being a jazz pianist and his mother a classical pianist. Garland began playing the piano at a young age and later learned to play the guitar and other instruments. Garland attended the University of Southern Maine, where he studied composition with Elliott Schwartz. He later went on to study with James Tenney at the California Institute of the Arts and with Joji Yuasa at the Kyoto City University of Arts in Japan. Garland's music is influenced by a variety of sources, including American folk music, Native American music, and the music of Asia. He is known for his use of just intonation, a tuning system that uses pure intervals rather than the tempered intervals used in Western music. One of Garland's early works is "Three Strange Angels," a piece for guitar and tape that he composed in 1978. The piece is based on a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke and features recordings of Native American music. In the 1980s, Garland began to focus more on just intonation and microtonal music. He composed a series of works for string quartet, including "String Quartet No. 1: In Praise of Poor Scholars" (1982) and "String Quartet No. 2: Crazy Cloud" (1984). These works feature unconventional tuning systems and explore the possibilities of microtonal intervals. Garland's interest in Native American music led him to compose a series of works for Native American instruments, including "The Days Run Away" (1986) for Native American flute and "The Landscape Scrolls" (1991) for Native American flute and percussion. In the 1990s, Garland began to incorporate elements of minimalism into his music. He composed a series of works for piano, including "Walk in Beauty" (1991) and "The Birthday Party" (1993), which feature repetitive patterns and a minimalist aesthetic. Garland's interest in Asian music led him to compose a series of works for Japanese instruments, including "Three Strange Angels II" (1994) for koto and shakuhachi and "The Flowing Stream" (1996) for shakuhachi and string quartet. In the 2000s, Garland continued to explore new musical territories. He composed a series of works for percussion, including "Apple Blossom Round" (2001) for marimba and "The Waves" (2003) for percussion quartet. These works feature complex rhythms and unconventional instrumentation. Garland's most recent works include "String Quartet No. 5: Love Songs" (2014), which features just intonation and microtonal intervals, and "Moon Viewing Music" (2016), which is inspired by Japanese moon-viewing festivals. Garland's music has been performed by a variety of ensembles, including the Kronos Quartet, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the California E.A.R. Unit. He has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to his work as a composer, Garland is also a writer and a curator. He has written extensively on music and culture, and he has curated several exhibitions on American music and art. Overall, Peter Garland is a unique and innovative composer who has pushed the boundaries of classical music. His music is characterized by its use of just intonation, microtonal intervals, and unconventional instrumentation, as well as its incorporation of elements from American folk music, Native American music, and the music of Asia.

More....