- Easley Blackwood, Jr.
Easley Blackwood, (born
April 21 ,1933 ), the son ofEasley Blackwood Sr. , is a professor ofmusic , a concert pianist, acomposer of music, some using unusual tunings, and the author of books onmusic theory , including his research into the properties ofmicrotonal tunings and traditional harmony.Blackwood was born in
Indianapolis, Indiana . He studiedpiano there and was doing solo appearances at the age of 14 with theIndianapolis Symphony Orchestra . After studies at many places (includingYale University , where he earned his Master of Arts degree) in the United States, he went toParis to study from 1954 to 1956. His teachers includeOlivier Messiaen ,Paul Hindemith , andNadia Boulanger . For forty years, from 1958 to 1997, Blackwood taught at theUniversity of Chicago , most of the time with the title of Professor. He then became Professor Emeritus at the University. As of April 2008 he is still teaching classes.Blackwood's initial compositions were not particularly unconventional although in them he employed
polyrhythm and wide melodic contours. This early music by Blackwood has been characterized as in an atonal yet a formally conservative style. In 1980-81 Blackwood shifted rather abruptly to a new style, releasingTwelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media . For these pieces, he usedmicrotonality to create unusualequal tempered musical scale s. Blackwood has explored all equal temperaments from 13 through 24, including 15-ET and 19-ET. [Easley Blackwood, Jeffrey Kust, "Easley Blackwood: Microtonal", Cedille (1996) ASIN: B0000018Z8.] Although Blackwood recorded most of these pieces with a synthesizer, his "Suite in 15-Note Equal Tuning, Op. 33" was performed live on a specially constructedguitar . His compositional style moved toward a late-19th-century tonality; he has likened its harmonic syntax to Verdi, Ravel, and Franck.As a performer at the piano, Blackwood has played diverse compositions and has promoted the music of
Charles Ives ,Pierre Boulez , and theSecond Viennese School . In addition to his solo piano performances, Blackwood is pianist in the chamber group Chicago Pro Musica, largely comprised of members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.Blackwood is also known for his book, "The Structure of Recognizable Diatonic Tunings," published 1986. A number of recordings of his music have been released by Cedille Records (the label of the Chicago Classical Recording Foundation) beginning in the 1990s.
External links
* [http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/composer.pl?comp=180 Art of the States: Easley Blackwood]
* [http://www.bruceduffie.com/blackwood.html Easley Blackwood interview by Bruce Duffie]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.