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Andrew Imbrie

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Andrew Imbrie
Born(1921-04-06)April 6, 1921
DiedDecember 5, 2007(2007-12-05) (aged 86)
Alma materPrinceton University,
University of California, Berkeley
EraContemporary

Andrew Welsh Imbrie (April 6, 1921 – December 5, 2007)[1] was an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist.

Career

Imbrie was born in New York on April 6, 1921, and began his musical training as a pianist when he was 4. In 1937, he went to Paris to study briefly with Nadia Boulanger. He returned to the United States the next year to attend Princeton University where he studied with Roger Sessions, receiving his undergraduate degree in 1942. His senior thesis there, a string quartet, was recorded by the Juilliard Quartet. He then went to the University of California, Berkeley, where he received an M.A. in Music in 1947; there he continued to study with Sessions, who had taken a position at Berkeley. Imbrie taught composition, theory, and analysis at Berkeley from 1949 until his retirement in 1991. In addition to his principal teaching job at Berkeley, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Brandeis University, Northwestern University, New York University, the University of Alabama, and Harvard University, and had a regular teaching post at the San Francisco Conservatory. He died at his home in Berkeley, California at the age of 86. His notable students include Larry Austin, Richard Festinger, Alden Jenks, Frank La Rocca, Neil Rolnick, Allen Shearer, Tamar Diesendruck, Laura Schwendinger, Nils Frykdahl, Kurt Rohde, Hi Kyung Kim, Leslie Wildman and Carolyn Yarnell.[2][3][failed verification]

Style

Imbrie's style was influenced early by Béla Bartók, and then by Roger Sessions, his teacher both at Princeton and at Berkeley. Imbrie prefers harmonies that are non-triadic, or if triadic, non-functional, and he wrote a tightly organized, often atonal contrapuntal texture with attention to careful motivic development; he avoided the serial techniques which dominated art music composition after the Second World War. Imbrie was also attentive to melodic line and shape, as one of the ways to make a free atonal language accessible.

Selected compositions

Imbrie’s compositions make up a body of work that spans many genres. These compositions are cited as his chief works:[4]

  • Three Against Christmas (1960 opera)
  • Angle of Repose (1976 opera)
  • Dandelion Wine (1961 for chamber ensemble)
  • To a Traveler (1971 for chamber ensemble)
  • Sextet for Six Friends (2007 for chamber ensemble)
  • Drumtaps for chorus with orchestra(text by Whitman)
  • Prometheus Bound for chorus with orchestra (text by Green after Aeschylus)
  • Adam for chorus with orchestra (text from medieval and Civil War sources)
  • Requiem (1984, chorus with orchestra)
  • Three symphonies
  • Eight concertos
  • Songs for voice
  • Sonatas for various instruments
  • Chamber works for diverse instrumental ensembles
  • Works for choral ensembles
  • Five string quartets

Recordings

First Recordings of Two Naumburg Award Compositions. Columbia Records, MS 6597

  • Violin Concerto

Andrew Imbrie. New York: Composers Recordings Inc., 1973. Rereleased, New World Records, 2007.[5]

  • Symphony No. 3
  • Serenade for flute, viola and piano
  • Sonata for cello and piano

New Music for Virtuosos. New York: New World Records, 1977.

  • Three Sketches

Andrew Imbrie and Gunther Schuller. New York: New World Records, 1978.

  • String Quartet No. 4

New Music Series Vol. 3. Neuma Records, 1993

  • Short Story

Collage New Music. Boston: GM Recordings, 1989.

  • Pilgrimage

Andrew Imbrie. Boston: GM Recordings, 1993.

  • String Quartets 4 & 5
  • Impromptu for Violin and Piano

Music of Andrew Imbrie. New York: CRI, 1994.

  • Symphony No. 3
  • Serenade for Flute, Viola and Piano
  • Sonata for cello and piano

Dream Sequence – Chamber Music of Andrew Imbrie. New York: New World Records, 1995.

  • Dream Sequence
  • Roethke Songs
  • Three Piece Suite
  • Campion Songs
  • To a Traveler

Andrew Imbrie, Requiem. New Rochelle, NY: Bridge Records, 2000.

  • Requiem
  • Piano Concerto No. 3

Andrew Imbrie. Albany, NY: Albany Records, 2002.

  • Spring Fever
  • Chicago Bells
  • Songs of Then and Now

References

  1. ^ San Francisco Classical Voice: In memoriam Andrew Imbrie (archive from December 10, 2007; accessed June 3, 2016).
  2. ^ Kozinn, Allan (2007-12-10). "Andrew Imbrie, 86, Composer Known for Use of Dissonance". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2010-02-09. Retrieved 2016-02-13. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Kozinn, Allan (2007-12-09). "Andrew Imbrie - Composer - Obituaries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  4. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-04-15. Retrieved 2015-06-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. ^ New World Records: Album Details

Sources

  • Ann P. Basart, Martin Brody: "Andrew Imbrie", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed July 21, 2006), (subscription access)
  • Kennedy, Michael (2006), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 985 pages, ISBN 0-19-861459-4
  • Kozinn, Alan: "Andrew Imbrie, 86, Composer and Teacher, Is Dead" The New York Times (December 9, 2007) [1]

Interviews

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