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Background

  • born October 24, 1929 Charleston, WV
  • known for being a composer of contemporary classical music
  • began composing at a young age
  • Received his Bachelor's degree from Mason College of Music in Charleston in 1950
  • Received his Masters at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
  • Briefly studied in Berlin before returning to the States to get his D.M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1959
  • Primarily earned his living through teaching

Teaching Career

  • Taught first at a college in Virginia for a brief stint before becoming the professor of piano and composition at the University of Colorado in 1958
  • in 1965, began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania,
  • Most prominent students: Margaret Brouwer, Uri Caine, Christopher Rouse, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Cynthia Cozette Lee, Yen Lu, James Primosch, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and Gerald Levinson.

Home Life

  • Crumb resides is Pennsylvania
  • Crumb's son David is a successful composer
  • Crumb's daughter Ann is a successful actress and singer

George Crumb's A Haunted Landscape

Musical Style

  • Explorer of unusual timbres, alternative notation, and extended instumental and vocal techniques
  • Often asks for unusual playing styles
  • Theater is often incorporated as an element of performance

by Drew Crum

Crumb's Inspiration for the Piece

"The title reflects my feeling that certain places on the planet Earth are imbued with an aura of mystery: I can vividly recall the 'shock of recognition' I felt on seeing Andalusia for the first time after having been involved with the poetry of Garcia Lorca for many years. I felt a similar sense of deja vu on visits to Jerusalem and to Delphos in Greece. Even in the West Virginia woods, one senses the ghosts of the vanished Indians.

A Haunted Landscape

  • Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic
  • Completed in 1984, performed by the Philharmonic on June 7, 1984
  • Orchestra for A Haunted Landscape is pretty standard
  • Percussion section is notably very large
  • Two solo double basses de-tune
  • Amplified piano is treated as a percussion instrument
  • Harp players asked to act as percussionist on occasion
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