Path: nuchat!menudo.uh.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: dave.lampson@pulse.com (Dave Lampson) Newsgroups: rec.music.classical Subject: rec.music.classical Biographical Compendium Part 1 of 3 Date: 2 Sep 1993 09:52:52 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway Lines: 759 Sender: daemon@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: <9309021428.AA07815@software.pulse.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu Revision: 9/1/93 This is the quasi-monthly posting of the biographies for participants of rec.music.classical gathered so far. I have edited many of them slightly to make for a more consistent format and to correct some typos. If anyone would like to submit updates, additions or corrections to their biography, please don't hesitate to send the information to me. The biographies have been listed alphabetically. The compendium is also available in PostScript format for easier-to-read printouts. If you would like a copy, send email to the address below. I really appreciate the effort everyone has put into this so far, and I'm sure members of the newsgroup appreciate having this information available. I'd especially like to thank everyone who submitted a bio the last posting. Let's keep those bios rollin' in! So far, the compendium contains 68 biographies for the following readers of and/or participants in rec.music.classical (* new since last posting; + revised since last posting): Pt. 1 William Alves Deryk G.R. Barker Anthony Becker Hector Bellmann Christopher Bertram +John Bodnar David Brooks Deborah Burton Jon Alan Conrad Thomas Deck Jonathan Delatizky Jonathan Dixon Rob Dobson James Nathan Duquette Houston Dunleavy Victor Eijkhout Matthew H. Fields David Fox Pt. 2 Dave Frederick Mike Garrahan Fred Goldrich Andrea K. Hakari Martin Hasch Robert Haskins Curtis Heisey James G. Henderson Karl Prescott Henning Jill Hollifield *Nancy Leinonen Howells Michael Hughes Mike Hurben Werner Icking Bill Johnson Chris Johnson Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik Michael Kahn Romain Kang Howard Koo Bob Kosovsky Winslowe Lacesso Lawrence David Lampson Maarten van Loon Vance Maverick Pt. 3 Sami Mitra Tony Movshon Iain Neill Reid +Hugh C. Resnick Bruce Rodean *Terje Rydland Henry D. Shapiro Greg Skinner Richard F. Smith Harold Smoliar Stephen Smoliar Max Stern David Straface Carl Tait Timothy Takahashi Gregory Taylor Michael Thorn Jennifer Turney Raymond S. Tuttle Francois R. Velde +Gabe M. Wiener Stephen Wilcox Richard Wilmer Ellis Workman Carol Gee Zarbock Deleted since last posting: Kyle Dawkins If you would like to participate in this project and add your biography to the compendium, please send the information to lampson@pulse.com, or post it to the newsgroup. Dave lampson@pulse.com REC.MUSIC.CLASSICAL BIOGRAPHICAL COMPENDIUM ******************************************* William Alves (alves@calvin.usc.edu) ------------- I am a composer living the Los Angeles area. I received my MM and DMA in composition at USC, and a BM and BS (in computer science) at Trinity University in San Antonio. I currently teach computer music and world music at USC and 20th-century music history at Scripps College in Claremont. I also develop multimedia computer software for education at USC. I write music for many media including electronics, orchestra, chamber groups, and what I call video concrete. Among the living composers whose works have most influenced me, I would name Lou Harrison and Terry Riley. I am also a fan of early (baroque and pre-baroque) music. Deryk G.R. Barker (dbarker@camins.camosun.bc.ca) ----------------- Born 25 September 1950 - the day Bruno Walter gave his only post-war concert in Berlin! Educated at small English grammar school, studied Mathematics Cambridge University 1968-70, Mathematics Education & Philosophy London University 1970-73. Master's in Computer Science Brunel University 1988. Studied classical guitar 1963-68, piano 1966-8. Played double bass in various (very) amateur orchestras 1966-70, sang in various choral societies 1966-70. Cantor Sidney Sussex College Cambridge 1968-70. Member of Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra 1969-73: sang on DG recording of Cardew's The Great Learning February 1972, and at Promenade Concert performance August 1972; participated in European premiere of Christian Wolff's Burdocks, London Spring 1972. My family was never especially musical, although my father "knows what he likes"; I first became interested in music in my early teens. First purchase I can remember being Sargent's recording of Holst's Planets - closely followed by The Beatles Please Please Me LP. My peer group at school was very musical and together we made many musical discoveries, the most significant for me probably being the music of Gustav Mahler, which I first heard when I was 14. After a (very) brief stint teaching school I gravitated into the computer business, which I have been working in since 1974, mostly as a software developer. Came to Canada in August 1988, stayed in Toronto 1 year then moved West to Victoria. Since July 1991 have been teaching Computer Science at Camosun College. Married (twice), no children although 3 grown-up stepdaughters still living in England. Began presenting weekly classical music show on CFUV-FM in Victoria, March 1990 - programme concentrates on historic performances and unusual repertoire; Classical Music Director of the station since October 1990. Music critic of Victoria Times-Colonist since April 1992. If forced at gunpoint to select a single musical style as my favourite I would nominate romantic orchestral, although I enjoy most music from early classical (even late baroque) to moderately avant-garde. I have little patience for opera or vocal music. Favourite composers: Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Elgar, Nielsen, Sibelius, Haydn. Favourite performers: Furtwaengler, Horenstein, Walter, Mravinsky, Hofmann, Solomon, Sammons, Ogdon, Barere. Bees in bonnet: Busoni, Sorabji, Reger, Grainger. Anthony Becker (becker@vela.acs.oakland.edu) -------------- ("Tony" to netters) I was born in December 1959 in Detroit, and have lived in the Metro Detroit area all my life. I am married and have one daughter. We speak German at home. I am currently working on my M.Mus. in Composition at Oakland University (Rochester, Mich.), and I also received my B.Mus. from there. My main performance instruments are piano and voice, though I play a variety of Renaissance wind instruments as well. I have performed mostly with the Oakland University Collegium Musicum, directed by Lyle Nordstrom, but am also active in the University Chorus and in my church, both as an accompanist and a singer. I compose mostly for small ensembles, though I've also written for orchestra. However, as this is not my chief livelihood, I don't write very often. In my other life, I'm a frustrated VM Systems Programmer (my shop is switching to MVS; all VM job offers seriously considered). My work is mainly with administrative users. I access the network through an account on one of the academic systems. I try to follow a number of newsgroups, mainly soc.culture.german, and various VM and MSDOS related groups, as well as a few of the music related ones. Hector Bellmann (h.bellmann@qut.edu.au) --------------- I was born in 1947. In my early years my parents made me believe that I liked classical music, which reflects in my asking of a record of the Egmont overture for Christmas when I was four. (I attest that I never gave a damn about it, but as it happens to be my father's favourite piece, I reckon I was just coerced into asking for it). They took me to watch The Great Caruso and told me I was crazy about La donna e mobile which I was not, but I have to acknowledge at least a passing enthusiasm over Liszt's La Campanella which didn't survive the crash of the record. In a chat (at five) with my mother about writing music she suggested that if I came up with something she could write it down for me. I thought it was a marvellous ability, but my first attempt at a waltz was also my last. I run into trouble in seconds as I realized that you cannot sing both the melody and the um-pah-pah which forced me to switch to the latter as soon as I got in doubt about the former. But I was incapable of explaining this to her. She was so disappointed at my effort that gave up without looking for a pretext. I was hurt and that was it. She didn't even keep the sheet as a souvenir. When she was doing the housework we used to play guessing the name of the opera aria the other was singing. I soon noticed I could beat her with any aria that modulated (not that I knew what modulation was, but I knew the feeling). I got her pissed off once and again with the same one, until once she accused me of singing out of tune. I never played that game again. For years I adamantly refused to take up piano lessons because, as everybody knew, piano playing was for girls. I had already trouble enough with the school bullies to give them a real motive of scorn. For my father Beethoven was the be-all-and-end-all of music. My mother was slightly more eclectic. She liked Respighi and Dvorak. Classical AM radio was always playing at home. I never paid much attention. The first time I ever asked what was some piece being played it turned to be Bartok's Second Piano Concerto. My next time I was ten and alone at home. I turned the radio on and was awestruck by what I heard. I stayed sort of hypnotised and then I scribbled in a piece of paper the only thing I understood, which was "Pacific 231". At thirteen I got hepatitis A. The doctor kept me bedridden for 50 days. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. There was no TV, so all I got in order to avoid boring to death was the radio. In two days I realized I knew a lot of pieces and set up to write down a list. In a month classical music had become my main interest in life. My list grew daily. My first gods were Wagner, Honegger, Hindemith and Prokofiev. There were three items whose author's names I couldn't get but I thought too good to forget about them. In time I found out what they were: Vaughan Williams' First Symphony; Jean Hanus Second Symphony; and Janacek's Sonata for violin and piano. One month later I started to study piano, and music became my only preoccupation. According to my father, I was listening to the radio an average of six hours per day. I remember a row with my mother as I wanted to miss school one day because they were playing Sibelius' Fourth Symphony in the morning... However I was strongly discouraged to take up music as a career, in which my parents didn't see any future except as high school teacher (!). So I yielded and studied maths, physics, eventually becoming Electronic Engineer and IBM programmer. I kept trying to study music as an aside but with little luck. I worked in the country (Argentina) and abroad, and eventually migrated to Australia. In the meantime I managed to had private lessons of harmony in 1982 and then took up Robert Ottman's book in 1987 with the help of a friend. In Australia I have been working as a PC hardware technician for four years. When I turned 42 I decided to give music a serious go, and I'm about completing my third year as a part-time student of BA majoring in Music and Psychology. I cannot fool myself that I will ever be a professional composer (I would love to write film music) but I've promised myself I'll write symphonic music just for myself even if I never get to hear it played except by my home computer. During the last twenty years my favourite composers had varied from Mahler and Nielsen to William Alwyn, Alan Pettersson, Eduard Tubin and Arvo Part. Christopher Bertram (c.bertram@bristol.ac.uk) ------------------- I am a political philosopher teaching at the University of Bristol, England. Born 1958, read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, then Philosophy at University College, London. Something about "classical" music clicked for me about two years ago. Expecting to like Haydn and Mozart, I found mylself liking Mahler, Wagner and Strauss. I'm currently investigating Shostakovich. I don't play an instrument (unless you count strumming an acoustic guitar). I'm a regular concertgoer and I try not to miss whatever the Welsh National Opera is doing. John Bodnar (john_bodnar-r16292@email.sps.mot.com) ----------- I was born on April 14, 1970, into a relatively non-musical family (Mom was the only one who could carry a tune) from New Jersey, although the ever present strains of 50's and 60's "oldies" tunes during my younger years have pretty well become a permanent part of my memory. I first started reading music in the fourth grade as a trombone player and became a proficient tuba player two years later. Upon moving to Texas in 1983, I permanently settled upon playing the trombone and continued to do so until I graduated from high school. I played in both concert and marching bands as well as trombone and brass ensembles during high school and from this experience gained a true appreciation of band and brass music. I first started listening to classical music after moving to Texas. I seem to recall that rock music once gave me nasty headaches, and as such, classical music provided welcome relief. My first recordings were those $3.99 each or 3 for $10 tape cassettes that are common in mall record stores, and from these, I became familiar with the music of many composers. After a couple of years, I came to the realization that Beethoven's music was for me somehow more satisfying than the music of any other composer. Since then, I have studied an inordinate amount of material about Beethoven (just about anything available to a non-music major at a large university), and from all of this, I seem to have committed an unusual amount of factual information to memory which occasionally comes in handy for various discussions in rec.music.classical. In 1988, I entered The University of Texas at Austin with a major in Computer Engineering. During my time at UT, I became increasingly interested in recorded music, especially performances that are considered historical from our current perspective (anything prior to, say, 1960). I attended my first classical concerts while here at UT, and for that matter, my first rock concert. In May of 1993, I received my BSEE from UT and returned to full time employment as an Applications Engineer with Motorola's Advanced Microcontroller Division here in sunny Austin, Texas. I have also passed my Fundamentals of Engineering exam and will be working towards becoming a registered Professional Engineer. Now that I've graduated and have some time on my hands, I've picked up my trombone and have started working on getting my chops in shape. I hope to start playing in the Austin Symphonic Band, and maybe get to the point where I can hit all the high notes when playing duets with my high school band director/trombone mentor :-) David Brooks (dbrooks@osf.org) ------------ Born in London in 1949, attended Cambridge University 1968-71, and emigrated to New England in 1983. Naturally, I have an affinity for English music. I've always been an amateur musician whose enthusiasms exceed his technical skills; still I am a mediocre pianist and reasonable percussionist (my parents couldn't afford *real* music lessons) who enjoys the management aspects of this post, as well as the visual impact, often underrated. I am also a choral tenor. In over-compensation for my own missed education, I have grown three children who are skilled cellist, violist and singer respectively; my oldest is a music/math major at Swarthmore College and takes part in r.m.c. My days in youth orchestras were some of the best times of my youth, and I dedicate some of my time and energy to giving some of that back; I work with the orchestra at my local high school as a part-time teacher, and I do what I can with the New England Conservatory youth orchestras. Keep the flame alive! Deborah Burton (cubsfan@cultnet.ch) -------------- I was born in New York and began studying piano with my grandmother who taught music in the New York City public schools. I finally got a degree in piano from Mannes, after pursuing other goals at Columbia. Then, an M.M. from Yale and am currently working on a Ph.D. in Music Theory from Univ. of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Despite that, I am living in Switzerland with my husband who is a CAD/CAM software engineer. I live near the Italian border which makes work on my dissertation easier - it is an analysis of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. I have also taught at a tiny liberal arts school in Michigan, Adrian College, and have contributed to the forthcoming Puccini companion, due out next year from Norton. Jon Alan Conrad (conrad@brahms.udel.edu) --------------- Ph.D. in music theory from Indiana University in 1985 (dissertation on the songs of Gershwin). Since 1982, on the faculty of the Department of Music of the University of Delaware, teaching music theory and literature. 1986-88, record reviewer and Contributing Editor for OPUS magazine. Writing: reviews and articles, THE KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER, OPERA QUARTERLY, THE NEW YORK TIMES. Program notes, Blossom Music Festival, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Elektra/Nonesuch records ("Girl Crazy," "Strike Up the Band"). Speaking engagements: Delaware Symphony, Opera Delaware, Wagner Society of New York. Contributor to the forthcoming publications THE NEW GROVE DICTIONARY OF OPERA (3 composer articles), THE PENGUIN OPERA GUIDE (32 composer articles), and THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUIDE TO RECORDED OPERA (9 opera chapters). Thomas Deck (hi61@mb72.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de) ----------- I'm a fan of classical music, but our orchestra doesn't play this sort of music. Normally we play popular music for wind instruments (polkas, marches, potpourris, arrangements of well-known pieces for wind instruments, etc.). A "classical" orchestra would be better for me, but I'm not good enough... (playing clarinet). Jonathan Delatizky (delatizk@bbn.com) ------------------ I was born and grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, in an essentially non-musical home. As a teenager during the heyday of the Beatles, the "classics" of the sixties had and still retain an important place in my life, but my first love in those days was folk and traditional music. Later I became entranced with its re-interpretation by bands like Fairport Convention, Pentangle, and Steeleye Span. I discovered the other classics at college, pretty much on my own (I had some help from a cousin whose favorite music included the Bartok quartets and Jimi Hendrix). At the time there was a record store in Johannesburg with an extensive classical selection, knowledgeable staff, and listening booths. I benefited considerably from the advice available there. My interest in a wide range of repertoire goes back to this time - my earliest purchases included (for example) Bernstein's recording of the Eroica, the Tchaikovsky D major string quartet, Szell's Mahler 4, and Peter Maxwell Davies' _Revelation and Fall_. I became an avid record collector and attended as much as I could of Johannesburg's limited concert circuit. In my junior & senior years I helped run a music association on campus which maintained a record library and sponsored occasional concerts. Over the ensuing years I've remained an active and interested amateur. I don't get to as many concerts as I'd like, I buy too many CDs, and I vicariously enjoy my daughter's violin lessons (I don't really play any instrument, except for a brief stint as a rotten clarinetist in a high school band). By profession I'm somewhere between an engineer and a computer scientist, in case that's of interest. My tastes are pretty wide. I still enjoy both traditional and electric folk, much "World Music", and some rock and jazz, though I just don't have the time (or budget) to follow those genres more than cursorily. I listen to (and enjoy :-) music from almost every period, with some major reservations about the years between (roughly) 1835 and 1890, though this gap has been diminishing recently. Within this period it's mostly chamber music that I do enjoy, so don't pay any attention if I comment on a Chopin concerto or Schumann symphony :-) Representative favorite works (today - these change!): Mahler 6 Gurrelieder Chronochromie (Messiaen) Bartok solo violin sonata Schubert string quintet Winterreise Bach cello suite #2 Berg violin concerto Le Nozze di Figaro Shostakovich 14th symphony Beethoven 7 Volans - White Man Sleeps (original version) Jonathan (Jon) Dixon (dixon@mimicad.colorado.edu) -------------------- I was born September 22, 1970, in Bowie, MD (a DC suburb), which is also where I grew up. I don't recall when I started really listening to classical music, but by high school my tastes were well developed. I have studied trumpet since the fourth grade, under a variety of teachers. I have played in several stage bands throughout my studies, including the Symphonic Band and the Wind Symphony at Michigan State. My formal education, although including a little music theory, consists mostly of technical subjects. I got a BS in Elect. Eng and a BS in math from MSU in 92, and currently I am in Boulder, CO, working on my Masters and probably PhD in EE (this way I can avoid the real world much longer 8). My primary music interests are brass music, music with large brass parts in it (John Williams, many of Mahler's works, etc), and to a lesser extent organ music. I have done a little experimentation with composition, mostly religious works for trumpet and piano or organ (although a lack of training in keyboard playing makes this more difficult). Rob Dobson (rwd4f@poe.acc.Virginia.EDU) ---------- I work at the University of Virginia Music Library. The job is low-low paying, but as a recent college graduate I am more than happy to have a job which is not waiting tables and also has lots of paid days off. But even better, I get to take home music from the Library's collection, a privilege reserved mainly for faculty. Just yesterday I took home a recording on 20+ LPs of the complete works of Stravinsky, conducted by Stravinsky. I have this problem with Stravinsky's name, I keep wanting to type Stravinksy. But that's irrelevant. I have always loved music, but until the last year or so I was part of the rock and roll generation and listened to nothing else. I still listen to rock, especially the Grateful Dead, but now for the most part I find it pretty dull, simple minded, etc. I like jazz a lot, too; it was the first non-rock music I liked. And now, working at the Music Lib. where most of the collection is classical, I have been eating it up. In my position I see everything new, score or recording, that comes into the Library, so I have learned almost as much in this job as in 4 years of college (I majored in Anthropology and Religion). I like a wide range of classical music, just as I like a wide range of non-classical music {yes, I even like rap, or some of it}. I certainly love baroque music, Vivaldi and Bach esp., but I realize that that music is limited, and sometimes (just last night, in fact, as I put on a disc of Telemann) that it can all sound a little too light and airy for me. It depends on my mood I guess. I tend to like concertos or chamber music as forms of classical music, as opposed to symphonies, which for some reason never really do it for me {Beethoven is the major exception}. I even like a lot of modern music, though some of it is frightfully tedious. However, it is not possible {or rather, pointless} to go back and try to write music that sounds like Mozart--what would M. have said if he was berated to `write something that sounds more like Vivaldi'? So I like music which is modern but still seems to go somewhere. Judith Shatin, a prof. here at UVA, has written some really beautiful music for flute lately. And finally, I have some artistic pretensions/aspirations myself, and am currently writing two pieces of music myself. James Nathan Duquette (dewy@mentor.cc.purdue.edu) --------------------- University: Purdue University School: Science Major: Nuclear Physics Year: Freshman Age: Eighteen I may be in the school of science with the intention of Nuclear Physics but my true heart is set in music. I listen to everything with strong devotion to orchestra soundtracks and classical works. My present and future hobby, besides studying, is composing for orchestra and string quintets. I got my musical background from the high school music department. I played cornet and I was rather good at it. Getting many performance experiences from weddings and being in a small band consisting of drums, piano, two violins, two trumpets, electric bass, flute, saxophone, and trombone. There was no lead singer. With such a configuration we called ourselves "Reality's Rhapsody" and we were damn good. Yes I know we had a weird instrumentation, but we all had talent and we composed and arranged our own pieces with style and class. It wasn't jazz it was us! My favorite pieces of music consist of: Mozart's Symphony No. 25 Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 Stavinsky's Rite Of Spring Beethoven's Everything Bizet's Carmen Mozart's Serenade For Woodwinds Schubert's Piano Sonata D. 959 Dukas The Sorceror's Apprentice Ravel's Bolero John William's "Hook" Hans Zimmer's Green Card Hans Zimmer's Backdraft Houston Dunleavy (dunleavy@acsu.buffalo.edu) ---------------- Houston Dunleavy was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland in November 1962. After early choral, Kodaly and Orff instruction, he began studying piano at age seven and, after moving to Australia with his family in 1973 and winning a full academic scholarship to Haileybury College in 1975, began studies on clarinet, saxophone, music history and music theory. He attended The University of Melbourne from 1981-86 where he graduated with a B.A. in British and American history and a B.Mus. in composition, as a student of Peter Tahourdin, Barry Conyngham and Donald Erb. He had also studied clarinet with Isobel Carter-Stockigt. Both during and after his undergraduate studies, he worked in Melbourne as a freelance musician, actor, clown, dancer and mimist as well as a teacher of woodwind instruments, firstly at Firbank Anglican Girls' Grammar School and then at St. Bede's College where he was Head of Department. A freak accident in which his left thumb was almost severed turned Dunleavy's thoughts toward graduate study in composition and to study the art of conducting more seriously. To this end he began orchestral conducting studies with Roland Yeung and applied for admission into the Cleveland Institute of Music in the USA. In 1988, he was accepted into the M.M program in composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Donald Erb. Whilst there, he began a second M.M. degree in choral conducting studying with Gilbert Brooks. Dunleavy undertook his first serious vocal studies there as a student of George Vassos, singing with the University Circle Chorale as tenor soloist and with the CIM Opera Theater. He graduated with the first M.M. degree in 1990, and with the second in 1991. Before the completion of the second degree, Dunleavy was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to study for a PhD in composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo as a student of David Felder. His conducting credits have seen him appear as the musical director and/or conductor of such diverse ensembles as Mordialloc Musical Society, Northern Theatre Company, Dandenong Light Opera Company, Donvale Community Orchestra, South Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Kew Philharmonic, Dandenong Valley Combined Schools' Band and Northern Theatre Company in Australia and The University Circle Chorale and Chamber Choirs and The Fires of Tonawanda in the USA. His conducting activities have spanned all genres and styles from the theatre pit to the concert hall. As a singer he has been a soloist and professional chorister with The Church of the Covenant (Presbyterian) in Cleveland OH, USA, St. Matthew's United Church of Christ in Hamburg NY, USA and First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, NY, USA. Other singing credits include the roles of "Curzio" in Mozart's _The Marriage of Figaro_ and "Dr. Stone" in Menotti's _Help! Help! The Globolink!_ However, he has always considered composition to be his main activity. He was chosen as the composer to write for the Geelong Youth Symphony during the 1985 International Year of Peace celebrations. His works have been played in Australia and in a number of US states with performances slated for Europe and South America in the next twelve months. He was also a composer/participant in the 1991 June in Buffalo New Music Festival and was featured as both a composer and conductor at the 1991 North American New Music Festival with the group "The Fires of Tonawanda". He was appointed to the theory and composition faculty at the National Music Camp at Interlochen Michigan during the summers of 1989 and 1990 and refused re-appointment for 1991 for personal reasons. Whilst there, he conducted the World Youth Symphony Orchestra in readings by student composers and had works performed in faculty recitals. Awards and honours include full tuition scholarships to Haileybury College and SUNY/Buffalo, The Florence Bradford Scholarship at the University of Melbourne, The Berly Rubinstein Scholarship at the Cleveland Institute of Music, a Presidential Fellowship from SUNY/Buffalo, a Life Membership from Nova Theatre Company and a certificate of achievement from The Old Haileyburians Association. His compositional interests include music for the theatre and voice, liturgical and non-liturgical church music and interactive digital synthesis. He currently resides in Buffalo, NY where he is completing Doctoral studies in music composition and is a teaching assistant at SUNY/Buffalo. Victor Eijkhout (eijkhout@cs.utk.edu) --------------- I was born in 1959. Started playing piano at the age of 7 and gave it up within a year. Later took up recorder and played that for a number of years, later switching to flute. Played recorder in a large ensemble (at least 20 people) and flute in a double woodwind quintet. Picked up piano again in the late seventies, and played flute and later piano in a group of people performing in old peoples homes; later playing those same instruments and pipe organ in two church choirs throughout the eighties. Style of music: pop-like. On flute developed a penchant for contemporary stuff (keyclicks, multiphonics), but eventually abandoned the instrument around 1986. Took up the bass guitar in the early 80's, first playing in a top-40 covers band, later in the New Wave band 'Triplex' that did 30 concerts somewhere halfway the eighties. In the same period had a brief fling with ragtime guitar, writing a number of rags for one and two guitars. Developing a fascination with Bach on the piano and organ, wrote some atonal preludes and fugues for one or two pianos. In the late eighties played electric bass in a big band (Count Basie stuff and Bob Mintzer-like big band funk), and tried playing Bach Cello suites on bass. This got much easier after purchasing a 5-string bass (which has B-E-A-D-G tuning low to high), and certainly after adopting the 'two handed tapping' style. Throughout the second half of the eighties played church organ, accompanying four part mixed choirs in several churches. At home had a multitimbral synthesizer hooked up to a computer, and arranged music on that, both popular and classical. Also played recorder duets (renaissance, transcribed Bach pieces, and contemporary original music), occasionally performing as street musicians (a certain passageway under some houses in the city centre had a particularly pleasing reverberation). Since coming to the United States in late 1990 not much organized music, only performing twice in a pop/jazz setting with a number of colleagues at departmental Christmas parties. At the moment owner of an electronic piano, a 5-string bass and good amplification for that. Matthew H. Fields (fields@eecs.umich.edu) ----------------- Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA in 1961, and grew up in Deerfield Illinois. He holds the Mus.B in composition from Oberlin Conservatory, the A.B. in computer science from Oberlin College, the M.A. in music from Stanford University, and the D.M.A. in music composition from The University of Michigan. Dr. Fields teaches private lessons in composition and theory at levels ranging from beginning to doctoral, and currently composes while supporting himself as a computer programmer... but would rather teach composition and theory in a university setting. His 1990 composition The Winds of Springtime, for piano, won the 1991 Busoni Foundation Composers Competition. Recent premieres include Mount Washington Memories, for 65 winds; Origami String Quartet; The Call of the Shofar, for four trombones. Dr. Fields' affiliations include associate membership in Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, and ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. David Fox (dfox@sas.upenn.edu) --------- I'm the Associate Director of the College of General Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where I also teach courses on topics in music and theatre. I've also taught at UCLA (again, theatre and music) and have designed music and sound for various theatres around the country. I've written for Opera Quarterly and several scholarly journals, and have contributed 30 essays (chiefly singer bios and sections on Strauss opera) to the forthcoming International Dictionary of Opera (St. James Press).