MEETING MOOG: The Early Electronic Music of Andrew Rudin
Bowerbird Presents GATE
Bowerbird is pleased to present this concert portrait of the early electronic music of composer Andrew Rudin. The concert will feature Rudin’s Tragodiea performed with a live video accompaniment and Il Giuoco (1966), which Robert Moog said to be the first large-scale, original, serious composition created on his synthesizing instruments. Il Giuoco is accompanied by a film (also made by the composer).
The late 1960s witnessed the true coming of age of electronic music. While new instruments had been developed since the beginning of the century, and widespread production began to percolate in the wake of the Second World War, it wasn’t until albums such as Morton Subotnick’s Silver Apples of the Moon (1967) and Wendy (née Walter) Carlos’ Switched-On Bach (1968) that electronic music reached the public ear on a massive scale.
Andrew Rudin's composition Tragoedia appeared hot on the heels of Subotnick’s record, which it followed in Nonesuch Records' groundbreaking series of commissions for original, album-length works of electronic music. Subtitled “A composition in four movements for electronic music synthesizer,” the large-scale structure of Tragoedia is based on the four fundamental emotional processes of Greek tragedy.
Rudin’s career up to the creation of Tragoedia transected a rich and fascinating period in the history of avant-garde music in Philadelphia. After undergraduate studies in which he was heavily influenced by the music of the Second Viennese School and Igor Stravinsky, Rudin went to the University of Pennsylvania in order to work with George Rochberg, who had recently become chair of the music department there. Rudin also studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen, who taught as a visiting professor for one semester, and George Crumb, who joined the department in Rudin’s final year there. He may also have crossed paths with future pioneering sound artist Maryanne Amacher, who was an undergraduate at Penn in the early 60s.
Admission is FREE