Frederic Anthony Rzewski (born April 13, 1938) is an American composer and virtuoso pianist. 13 April is the 103rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (104th in leap years). ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... A pianist is a person who plays the piano. ...

He attended Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Virgil Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt. In 1960, he went to Italy, a trip which was formative in his future musical development: in addition to studying with Luigi Dallapiccola, he commenced a career as a performer of new piano music, often with an improvisatory element. A few years later he became a co-founder of Musica Elettronica Viva with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum. Musica Elettronica Viva conceived music as a collective, collaborative process, with improvisation and live electronic instruments prominently featured. In 1971 he returned to New York. (Sadie 1980) Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Princeton University, incorporated as The Trustees of Princeton University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, is the fourth-oldest institution to conduct higher education in the United States. ... Virgil Thomson, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1947 Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 - September 30, 1989) was an American composer from Missouri, whose rural background gave a sense of place in his compositions. ... Roger Sessions (28 December 1896 – 16 March 1985) was an American composer, critic and teacher of music. ... Walter Hamor Piston Jr. ... Milton Byron Babbitt (born May 10, 1916) is an American composer. ... Luigi Dallapiccola (February 3, 1904 – February 19, 1975) was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions. ... Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome in the late sixties by Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum and Frederic Rzewski. ... Composer Alvin Curran (born 13 December 1938 in Providence, Rhode Island) is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter. ... Richard Teitelbaum (May 19, 1939 in New York, NY) is a composer, keyboardist, and improvisor. ... Collective can also refer to the collective pitch flight control in helicopters A collective is a group of people who share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project(s) to achieve a common objective. ... Collaboration, literally, consists of working together with one or more other people. ... Improvisation is the act of making something up as it is performed. ... An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ...

In 1977 Rzewski became Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège, Belgium. Occasionally he teaches for short periods at schools and universities throughout the U.S. and Europe, including Yale University, the University of Cincinnati, The California Institute of the Arts, the University of California, San Diego, and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. (ibid) Musical composition is: an original piece of music the structure of a musical piece the process of creating a new piece of music // A musical composition A piece of music exists in the form of a written composition in musical notation or as a single acoustic event (a live performance... Liège (Dutch: Luik, German: Lüttich; before 1946, the citys name was written Liége, with the acute accent) is a major city located in the Belgian province of Liège, of which it is the capital. ... Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. ... McMicken Hall on the main campus. ... -1... The University of California, San Diego (popularly known as UCSD) is a public, coeducational university located in La Jolla, California. ... The Royal Conservatory of The Hague (in Dutch: Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag) is a music school in The Hague (the Netherlands) with many foreign students. ...

Most of Rzewski's works are overtly political (see: music and politics) and feature improvisational elements. He is an unapologetic Marxist. Some of his better-known music includes The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (36 variations on "El pueblo unido jamás será vencido"), a set of bravura piano variations written as a companion piece to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations; Coming Together, which is a setting of letters from an inmate at Attica State Prison, at the time of the famous riots there (1971); North American Ballads; Night Crossing with Fisherman; The Price of Oil, and Le Silence des Espaces Infinis, both of which use graphical notation; Les Moutons de Panurge; and the Antigone-Legend, which features a principled opposition to the policies of the State, and which was premiered, to the composer's amusement, on the night that the United States bombed Libya in April 1986. (ibid) There is a long history of the connection between music and politics, particularly political expression in music. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1979) is a piano composition by American composer Frederic Rzewski. ... The Variations for piano in C major on a waltz by Diabelli Op. ... The Attica Prison riots were general prison uprisings that occurred at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, United States, on September 9, 1971. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Nicolas Slonimsky (1993) says of him in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians: "He is furthermore a granitically overpowering piano technician, capable of depositing huge boulders of sonoristic material across the keyboard without actually wrecking the instrument." Nicolas Slonimsky (April 27, 1894 - December 25, 1995) was a Russian-American composer, conductor, music critic, musician, and author. ...

Discography

Composed By Rzewski

• Frederic Rzewski - The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1979)
• Frederic Rzewski - De Profundis (1994)
• Frederic Rzewski - Song and Dance/The Flower-Fed Buffaloes (1980)
• Frederic Rzewski - Night Crossing (1997)
• Frederic Rzewski - 'No Place to Go but Around (1977)
• Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Piano Works 1975-1999 (2002)
• Frederic Rzewski - Coming Together/Attica/Les Moutons de Panurge (1972) (1990)
• Frederic Rzewski & Peter Weiss - L'instruction - Oratorio (1988)
• Frederic Rzewski - North American Ballads/Squares (1989)
• Frederic Rzewski - "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" (1980) in Double Edge Us Choice (1992)
• Frederic Rzewski - Piano Music (1996)
• Frederic Rzewski - Four Pieces/Ballad No. 3: Which Side Are You On? (1982)
• Frederic Rzewski - Antigone-Legend (1997)
• Frederic Rzewski - Bumps (1997)
• Frederic Rzewski - The Road (1995-2003): Turns (Part 1), 1995; Tracks (Part 2), 1996; Tramps (Part 3), 1997; Stops (Part 4), 1998; A Few Knocks (Part 5), 1999; Travelling with Children (Part 6), 1999; Final Preparations (Part 7), 1999-2002; The Big Day Arrives (Part 8), 2002-03;

The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1979) is a piano composition by American composer Frederic Rzewski. ...

Played By Rzewski

• Capriccio Hassidico (1991)
• Musica Elettronica Viva - United Patchwork (1977)
• Musica Elettronica Viva - Leave The City
• Musica Elettronica Viva - Spacecraft
• Musica Elettronica Viva - Live 7" (Recorded live at Philgena Oakland CA 1994)
• Cornelius Cardew - We Sing For The Future!
• Tom Johnson - An Hour for Piano (1985)
• Henri Pousseur - Aquarius-Memorial
• Henri Pousseur - La Guirlande de Pierre
• Stockhausen - Klavierstück X (Wergo LP)

Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome in the late sixties by Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum and Frederic Rzewski. ... Cornelius Cardew (b. ... Tom Johnson can refer to different people: Tom Johnson, minimalist composer. ... Henri Pousseur (Composer Born 1929) Studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels. ... Henri Pousseur (Composer Born 1929) Studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels. ... Karlheinz Stockhausen (born August 22, 1928) is a contemporary composer. ...

Sources

• "Frederic Rzewski," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742.
• The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky. New York, Schirmer Books, 1993. ISBN 002872416X.

External links

• New Albion Artist: Frederic Rzweski
• Perfect Sound Forever: Interview with Frederic Rzweski by Daniel Varela (March 2003)
• Inofficial Yahoo! Group devoted to composer Frederic Rzewski

Listening

• Epitonic.com: Steve Lacy, Irene Aebi, and Frederic Rzewski featuring tracks from Packet
• Art of the States: Moonrise with Memories

Sheet Music

• Zen-On Music Company Ltd Published his "People United ..." and "Squares, North American Balades"
• Free scores by Frederic Rzewski in the Werner Icking Music Archive

• Jenny Lin has some scores of Rzewski to download. Here you will also find Rzewski's comment on copyleft.