listen to complete piece

composer	Mel Powell (1923-1998)
performers	California EAR Unit: Dorothy Stone, flute Marty Walker, clarinet Robin Lorentz, violin Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick, cello Vicki Ray, piano Amy Knoles, percussion
publisher	G. Schirmer (ASCAP)http://www.schirmer.com
label	New World Records 80616http://www.newworldrecords.org
duration	10:31

about the music

Mel Powell composed a series of works entitled Immobiles between 1967-1969. This piece consists of a tape part realized at the Yale University Electronic Music Studio and a score for an indeterminate number of musicians. Drawn from Powell's ideas of 'aperiodicity,' or the unpredictable occurrence of pitches or rhythms, the score is simply a circle of notes which the musicians perform by starting anywhere in the circle and continuing clockwise. Powell likened the resulting sense of immobility to the "luminous silent stasis" described in James Joyce's novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).

about the composer		back to top

Mel Powell (1923-1998) was a composer of intricate works using serial and twelve-note techniques and a noted jazz pianist and arranger. His early compositions bear the neoclassical influence of his mentor Paul Hindemith; he gradually moved into serialism in the late 1950's, inspired by the music of Pierre Boulez and Anton Webern. One of Powell's principal techniques was the use of 'pitch tableaus' consisting of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale performed in different chordal configurations. He also experimented with aleatoric elements, new forms of notation, and electronic music.

Born Melvin Epstein to a Russian immigrant family in the Bronx, New York, he started piano lessons at six, and in his teenage years developed a fascination with jazz. He graduated from high school several years early, began playing in jazz clubs, and studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar at the Juilliard School of Music. In 1941 Powell joined the Benny Goodman Orchestra for a year as a pianist and arranger, also performing with Raymond Scott's orchestra at CBS. He became a well-known jazz pianist in World War II as a member of the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. Powell moved to Hollywood, California after the war and worked for the MGM film studio as a composer and pianist. His growing interest in classical composition led him to enroll at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he studied with Paul Hindemith.

Powell's teaching career began at Mannes College of Music and Queens College in New York City; in 1957 he succeeded Hindemith as chair of the composition department at Yale University, where in 1960 he founded and directed its Electronic Music Studio, one of the first in the United States. He became the first dean of the California Institute of the Arts School of Music in 1969, later serving as provost and chair of the composition department. Other posts Powell held included president of the American Music Center (1961-1963), co-founder of the journal Perspectives of New Music, and board member of the Yale-based Journal of Music Theory. He received awards and commissions from the Fromm, Guggenheim, and Koussevitzky Foundations, and National Endowment of the Arts, as well as the Brandeis Creative Arts Award and in 1990 the Pulitzer Prize for his work Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.

Powell's music has been recorded on the Albany, Bridge, Cambria, CRI, harmonia mundi, Music & Arts, MusicMasters, and New World labels.

related websites
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/powell_bio.html

about the performers		back to top

Founded in 1981, the California EAR Unit is among the United States' most prominent contemporary music chamber ensembles. Its repertoire of over 500 compositions ranges from the most demanding concert works to multimedia collaborations with artists in other disciplines. The EAR Unit has performed at major venues and festivals worldwide, including Amsterdam, Aspen, Boston, Brussels, Cologne, Kiev, London, Minneapolis, New York, Paris, Reykjavik, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, and many others. It has been featured in documentaries for the BBC and Japanese television, and radio broadcasts in the US, Canada, and Europe. Since 1987 the EAR Unit has been ensemble-in-residence at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; in 2005 it began a new residency at REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall. The group has recorded for the Bridge, Cambria, Crystal, Echograph, New Albion, New World, Nonesuch, oodiscs, Tzadik, and Voyager labels. In 1999 the EAR Unit received the Letter of Distinction from the American Music Center.

related websites
http://www.earunit.org