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George Emanuel Lewis (born July 14, 1952) is an American composer, electronic performer, installation artist, tromboneplayer, and scholar in the fields of improvisation and experimental music.[1] He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971 and is a pioneer of computer music.[2]
Biography[edit]
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Lewis graduated from Yale University in 1974 with a degree in philosophy. In the 1980s, he succeeded Rhys Chatham as the music director of The Kitchen.[3] Since 2004, he has served as Edward H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University in New York City, where he is now Vice-Chair of the Department of Music.[4]He previously taught at the University of California, San Diego.[1] In 2002, Lewis received a MacArthur Fellowship. He has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), a United States Artists Fellowship (2011), the Alpert Award in the Arts (1999), and the American Musicological Society's Music in American Culture Award in 2009. He became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2016, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018.
He has recorded or performed with Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Bertram Turetzky, Conny Bauer, Count Basie, David Behrman, David Murray, Derek Bailey, Douglas Ewart, Evan Parker, Fred Anderson, Frederic Rzewski, Gil Evans, Han Bennink, Irène Schweizer, J. D. Parran, James Newton, Joel Ryan, Joëlle Léandre, John Zorn, Karl E. H. Seigfried, Laurie Anderson, Leroy Jenkins, Marina Rosenfeld, Michel Portal, Misha Mengelberg, Miya Masaoka, Muhal Richard Abrams, Nicole Mitchell, Richard Teitelbaum, Roscoe Mitchell, Sam Rivers, Steve Lacy, and Wadada Leo Smith.
He was also a sometime member of Musica Elettronica Viva, the Globe Unity Orchestra, and the ICP Orchestra (Instant Composer's Pool).[5]
Lewis has long been active in creating and performing with interactive computer systems, most notably his software called Voyager, which "listens to" and reacts to live performers. Between 1988 and 1990, Lewis collaborated with video artist Don Ritter to create performances of interactive music and interactive video controlled by Lewis's improvised trombone.[6] Lewis and Ritter performed at venues in North America and Europe, including Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Verona Jazz Festival, Art Institute of Chicago, The Kitchen (New York City), New Music America 1989 (New York City), The Alternative Museum (New York City), A Space (Toronto), and the MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, Massachusetts).
In 2008, Lewis published a book-length history of the AACM titled A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press). The book received the 2009 American Book Award.
Lewis has received three honorary degrees: Doctor of Music from the University of Edinburgh in 2015, Doctor of Humane Letters from New College of Florida in 2017, and Doctor of Music from Harvard University in 2018.[2]
Research areas[edit]
Lewis has spoken and published widely on topics of improvisation in music and the concept of creolization in music.[7][8][9] His work on computer music explores performance by live musicians with interactive computer systems.[10] His interest in pedagogy and practice of music improvisation explores issues of racial and cultural identity.[11][12]
Appearances[edit]
In 1992, Lewis collaborated with Canadian artist Stan Douglas on the video installation Hors-champs which was featured at documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany. The installation features Lewis in an improvisation of Albert Ayler's "Spirits Rejoice" with musicians Douglas Ewart, Kent Carter and Oliver Johnson.[13]
Lewis is featured extensively in Unyazi of the Bushveld (2005), a documentary about the first symposium of electronic music held in Africa, directed by Aryan Kaganof.
Lewis gave an invited keynote lecture and performance at NIME-06, the sixth international conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, which was held at IRCAM, Paris, in June 2006.
In 2008 his work "Morning Blues for Yvan" was featured on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music(Bridge Records) produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike.
- ^ a b Layne, Joslyn. "George Lewis". Allmusic. Retrieved 2007-09-28.
- ^ a b "Harvard awards seven honorary degrees". News.harvard.edu. May 24, 2018.
- ^ Hunter, Trevor (2010-06-01). "George E. Lewis—The Story's Being Told". NewMusicBox.org. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
- ^ "George E. Lewis". Columbia University Department of Music. April 22, 2016.
- ^ Layne, Joslyn. "ICP Orchestra". Allmusic. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
- ^ "Don Ritter Biography". Aesthetic-machinery.com. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
- ^ "A Small Act of Curation - ONCURATING". www.on-curating.org. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
- ^ Lewis, George E. (Spring 1996). "Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives". Black Music Research Journal. 16 (1): 91. doi:10.2307/779379 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Lewis, George E. (2020-07-03). "Lifting the Cone of Silence From Black Composers". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
- ^ Lewis, George E. (2011-04-22). Interactivity and Improvisation. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199792030.013.0021.
- ^ Lewis, George E. (2007-12-01). "Improvisation and Pedagogy: Background and Focus of Inquiry". Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation. 3 (2). doi:10.21083/csieci.v3i2.412. ISSN 1712-0624.
- ^ Lewis, George E. (2004-09-01). "Gittin' to Know Y'all: Improvised Music, Interculturalism and the Racial Imagination". Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation. 1 (1). doi:10.21083/csieci.v1i1.6. ISSN 1712-0624.
- ^ Gale, Peggy (1996). "Stan Douglas: Evening and others." VIDEO Re/VIEW: The (best) Source for Critical Writings on Canadian Artists' Video. Eds. Peggy Gale and Lisa Steele. Toronto: Art Metropole. p. 363. ISBN 0-920956-37-8