Robert Erickson
Composer
1917 – 1997
Who was Robert Erickson?
Robert Erickson was an American composer.
He studied with Ernst Krenek from 1936-1947: "I had already studied—and abandoned—the twelve tone system before most other Americans had taken it up." He influenced notable students Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and Paul Dresher. He is also the author of The Structure of Music: A Listener's Guide, which he claimed helped him overcome a "contrapuntal obsession", and Sound Structures in Music.
He taught at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, San Francisco State College, University of California at Berkeley, and then the San Francisco Conservatory. Together with composer Wilbur Ogdon he founded the music department at the University of California San Diego in 1967: "We decided we wanted a department where composers could feel at home, the way scholars feel at home in other schools." While there he met faculty performers such as bassist Bertram Turetzky, trumpeter Edwin Harkins, flutist Bernhard Batschelet, and singer Carol Plantamura: "I could go to Bert, or Ed, with something I'd written down and ask 'Hey, can you do this?' And I'd get an immediate answer. It was a fabulous time for cross-feeding."
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- Born
- Mar 7, 1917
Marquette - Nationality
- United States of America
- Education
- Master of Arts, Hamline University
Music
( - 1947)
- Master of Arts, Hamline University
- Lived in
- San Diego
( - 1997/04/24)
- San Diego
- Died
- Apr 24, 1997
San Diego
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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