Six World Premieres by the Grad Composition Students (Columbia Composers)
LOCATION: ROULETTE -- 20 Greene Street (between Canal and Grand Streets), New York
DATE: Sunday, March 9, 2008, 8PM
Free Entry!
Program:
Computer Music I
Course Information
This year-long sequence explores advanced topics relating to the production of music by computer. Although programming experience is not a prerequisite, various programming techniques are enlisted to investigate interface design, algorithmic composition, and computer analysis of digital audio. Some familiarity with computer music hardware/software is expected.
Basic Electroacousics
Course Information
In this year-long sequence, students gain familiarity with the materials used in electroacoustic music and the techniques and equipment that are employed to transform and organize these materials into compositions. Individual projects are assigned.
Prerequisite: instructor’s permission.
Music Since 1900-II: After 1945
Course Information
Investigation and analysis of 20th Century Styles and Techniques, carried out in part through individual projects.
Advanced Orchestration
Course Information
This course will cover all the traditional topics of orchestration classes: analysis of the techniques used in successful works from the past, discussion of the characteristics of various groups of instruments and their role in building musical form, etc. The course will also explore the deeper understanding of orchestrational principles that our current knowledge of acoustics and our techniques of sonic analysis make possible. Thus, empirical and theoretical knowledge will be combined in an effort both to understand the masterworks of the past and to provide a framework for each composer’s future personal explorations. While the “Orchestration” class mostly focuses on the repertoire of the classical and romantic period, “Advanced Orchestration” will focus on the late romantic era and on the 20th and 21st centuries. The most recent techniques will also be studied, including micro-tonality, extended instrumental techniques, use of non-western or non-traditional instruments, live electronics and computer sounds. Practical questions such as notation, preparation of parts, rehearsing and performance issues will also be examined. Students will analyze selected excerpts from orchestral scores and will write sketches for various ensembles and orchestral formations.
Advanced Composition
Course Information
Composition in more extended forms. Survey of advanced techniques of contemporary composition.
The prerequisites for this course are V3240 Introduction to Composition, II, and the instructor's permission.Â
A student who is particularly highly qualified may, with instructor's permission, enter the sequence at a later stage than the beginning. More advanced study may be obtained after these courses have been taken by enrolling, by prior agreement with an individual faculty member, in V3998x-V3999y Supervised Independent Study, and also C3995x or y (Columbia College) and W3996x or y (School of General Studies) Honors Research: see Independent Study, and Honors in Music.
MIDI Music Production Techniques
Course Information
An introduction to the potential of digital synthesis by means of the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). The goals of the course, in addition to teaching proficiency in elementary and advanced MIDI techniques, are to challenge some of the assumptions about music built into the MIDI specifications and to foster a creative approach to using MIDI machines.
The prerequisite for this course is C1123 or F1123 Masterpieces of Western Music or BC 1001x or 1002y Introduction to Music, or equivalent.Â
Graduate Study in Composition
Composition Faculty
Edwin H. Case Professor of Music
Joseph Dubiel
Professor of Music
Graduate Studies in Music at Columbia University
For detailed requirements, policies, and procedures, please use the Graduate Handbook links on the right side of this page.
Prospective students considering our PhD/DMA programs should be sure to visit our information page for graduate program applicants.
IntroductionThrough the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Music offers degrees in Musicology (M.A., leading to M.Phil., and Ph.D.) and Composition (M.A., leading to D.M.A.).
Edwards, George, 1943-2011
The members of The Department of Music at Columbia University express our collective sorrow and offer our condolences to the friends and family of George Edwards, Edward MacDowell Emeritus Professor of Music, who passed away on October 23, 2011. Prof. Edwards had a long and distinguished career at Columbia, in addition to his significant public career as a composer and critic.
George Edwards grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He attended Oberlin College, where his principal teacher was Richard Hoffman, and from which he graduated in 1965. From 1965-68, he attended graduate school and earned the MFA at Princeton University, where he studied with Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, and Earl Kim. He taught music theory and composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston beginning in 1969. He won the Rome Prize in Composition in 1975, and in 1977 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Music at Columbia University in New York. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in both 1980 and 1986, and earned tenure at Columbia in 1987, heading the composition program here from 1987 to 1995. He also served on the Advistory Committee of the Alice M. Ditson Fund from 1988 to 2005, serving as the Committee's Secretary. He served as Chair of the Department of Music at Columbia from 1996 to 1999. After his retirement in 2006, he was named Edward MacDowell Emeritus Professor of Music by Columbia's Board of Trustees.
Prof. Edwards is survived by his wife, Rachel Hadas, to whom he was married in 1978, and by his son, Jonathan, born in 1984. The family has suggested that donations may be made in memory of Prof. George Edwards to either of the following organizations:
The Well Spouse Association (Support for Spousal Caregivers)
or
The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration
Condolences and remembrances may be sent to:
Rachel Hadas
838 West End Avenue
Apt. 3A
NY NY 10025
Or sent by email to:
rhadas@andromeda.rutgers.edu
A memorial tribute to Prof. Edwards is being planned for the spring, and will be announced on this website.
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From the notes to The Music of George Edwards (Albany Records, 2011): George Edwards graduated from Oberlin and then did graduate study at Princeton, where he studied with Milton Babbitt, Earl Kim and Edward T. Cone. He taught at the New England Conservatory and then moved to Columbia University in 1977 where he taught composition and theory until 2004 when he retired. George Edwards’ longtime friend and colleague, the composer and theorist Fred Lerdahl, identifies three basic strands in Edwards’ music. First, it is relentlessly contrapuntal. Second, Lerdahl notes that while the music is not truly serial, the works of twelve-tone composers have had a profound effect. Finally, the music shows a strong affinity for the lyrical intensity and harmonic richness of the late Romantic Austro-German repertoire. These three strands coalesce in important ways to form the essence of George Edwards’ unique compositional voice. With the release of this recording, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to engage with a composer of the first order.
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