Role

:

Composer Performer

Country

:

United States of America

Birth

:

September 12, 1922 in Chicago, IL

Death

:

December 8, 2004 in New York City, NY

Genre

:

Avant-Garde

 

 

Vocal

 

Jackson Mac Low was an American poet, composer, and performance artist who was born on September 12, 1922, in Chicago, Illinois. He was raised in a family that valued music and the arts, and he began studying piano at a young age. Mac Low's parents were both involved in the arts, and his father was a painter and his mother was a pianist. Mac Low attended the University of Chicago, where he studied philosophy and literature. During this time, he became interested in experimental poetry and began to experiment with different forms of writing. He also became interested in music and began to study composition with the composer Stefan Wolpe. In the 1950s, Mac Low became involved in the New York avant-garde art scene, where he met and collaborated with many other artists and musicians. He became associated with the Fluxus movement, which was a group of artists who were interested in creating art that was interactive and participatory. Mac Low's early works were influenced by chance operations and indeterminacy, which were popular concepts in the avant-garde art world at the time. He often used chance operations to determine the structure and content of his poems and musical compositions. One of Mac Low's most famous works is "The Pronouns: A Collection of Forty Dances for the Dancers," which was first performed in 1961. The piece consists of forty short dances, each of which is based on a different pronoun. The dancers are instructed to perform the dances in a random order, and the music is also performed in a random order. Mac Low's music often incorporated elements of chance and indeterminacy, as well as non-traditional musical notation. He was interested in exploring the boundaries between music and language, and his works often blurred the lines between the two. In addition to his work as a composer, Mac Low was also a prolific poet. He published numerous collections of poetry throughout his career, including "Stanzas for Iris Lezak" and "Forties." Mac Low continued to work as a composer and poet throughout his life, and he received numerous awards and honors for his work. He died on December 8, 2004, in New York City, at the age of 82. Overall, Jackson Mac Low was a pioneering figure in the world of experimental music and poetry. His works were characterized by their use of chance operations and indeterminacy, as well as their exploration of the boundaries between music and language. His legacy continues to influence artists and musicians today.

More....