David Noon
Encyclopedia
David Noon is a contemporary classical
composer and educator. He has written over 200 works from opera to chamber music. Noon's composition teachers have included Karl Kohn
, Darius Milhaud
, Charles Jones
, Yehudi Wyner
, Mario Davidovsky
, and Wlodzimierz Kotonski
. He has been a distinguished member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music
30 years.
. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch, Welsh, and American Indian heritage. His formal musical education began at the age of 8 when he learned to play the clarinet. Subsequently, he took bassoon, flute, piccolo, and piano lessons. Throughout his childhood, he frequently performed in choirs, bands, orchestras, and chamber music ensembles. During his collegiate years at Pomona College
, he continued to sing and play bassoon and piano. He also began the systematic study of composition. Following his undergraduate education, he attended New York University
to study Medieval music
with Gustave Reese
. After receiving an MA in musicology at NYU, he attended Yale University
, where he received an MMA and a DMA in composition.
In 1972-73, he was a Fulbright Fellow in composition at the Music Conservatory in Warsaw, Poland. From 1973-76, Noon taught music theory and composition and supervised the advanced ear-training program at the School of Music at Northwestern University. In 1976, he was composer-in-residence at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico
. From 1996-98, Noon was Composer Artist-in-Residence at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
A prolific composer, Noon has written 232 works including chamber music, orchestral works, and choral compositions. He has written 11 string quartets, 3 piano concertos, the opera R.S.V.P., and many works featuring percussion. He has also written 2 books of poetry: Postcards from Rethymno and Bitter Rain; 3 historical novels: The Tin Box, Googie's, and My Name Was Saul; and 3 Nadia Boulanger
mysteries, Murder at the Ballets Russes, The Tsar's Daughter, and The Organ Symphony.
He was on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music
in New York City from 1981-2011, where he was Chairman of the Music History Department (1981-2007), Chairman of the Composition Department (1989-98), and Dean of Academics (1998-2006). In 2007-08, Noon was a visiting professor of musicology and composition at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, China
. Noon resides in New York City and on the Greek island of Crete
.
, Webern
, and Boulez
, Noon wrote serial music until 1975. It was in that year, in the finale of his String Quartet #1, that Noon abruptly wrote a volta in the style of a Renaissance
viol consort
. This was the beginning of Noon’s conscious reference to styles, techniques, and formal procedures of the past. While often maintaining a fully chromatic harmonic and melodic language, Noon’s music frequently makes allusions to tonal diatonicism. The sharp distinction between chromatically dissonant and diatonically tonal music has become a stylistic trait of Noon’s work.
Formally, Noon’s music is clearly indebted to the Classical tradition with his music being frequently informed by references to sonata-allegro, variation
, rondo
, and binary dance forms of the past. His early and continued interest in Medieval
and Renaissance music has influenced many of his compositions with regard to choices of text (Boethius, St. Augustine of Canterbury, Sedulius Scottus
, Columbanus
, Alcuin
, Villon
, Petrarch
), constructive techniques (including isorhythm), and basic melodic material (especially Gregorian Chant
). The obvious influence of Medieval music can be heard in Noon’s Alleluias for solo flute, winds & percussion, A Medieval Reliquary for baritone, flute, ‘cello & harp, Tristan’s Mirror and Miroir Estampie both for 2 pianos, and String Quartet #7 “le tombeau des troubadours.” Blending Medieval and Renaissance with contemporary procedures has become a hallmark of Noon’s pluralistic, Post-Modern work.
Alongside music for traditional ensembles, Noon has frequently written music for percussion from large ensembles such as his Symphonia Apocalyptica for 12 percussionists to solo works such as Hardcore for solo timpanist. While usually writing for traditional percussion instruments, Noon occasionally writes theatrical pieces for found percussion (music stand, pots & pans, playing cards, brooms), for example, his works Stand Up!, Hot Grease, Nasty Licks!, Table for One, Hit the Deck, and Swept Away.
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
composer and educator. He has written over 200 works from opera to chamber music. Noon's composition teachers have included Karl Kohn
Karl Kohn
Karl Georg Kohn is an American composer, teacher and pianist.- Biography :Kohn began playing the piano as a child in Vienna and, after he, at the age of 13, immigrated to the United States, continued his education in New York City and at Harvard where he studied composition with Walter Piston,...
, Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, Charles Jones
Charles Jones
-Arts, architecture, scholarship:* Charles Jones , Ealing's first architect, engineer and surveyor* Charles Jones , gardener and photographer* Chuck Jones , American animator, director, and producer...
, Yehudi Wyner
Yehudi Wyner
Yehudi Wyner is an American composer, pianist, conductor, and music educator.Wyner, who grew up in New York City, was raised in a musical family. His father, Lazar Weiner, was an eminent composer of Yiddish art songs. Wyner attended Juilliard, Yale, and Harvard...
, Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...
, and Wlodzimierz Kotonski
Wlodzimierz Kotonski
Włodzimierz Kotoński , is a Polish composer.-Biography:Kotoński studied with Piotr Rytel and Tadeusz Szeligowski at the PWSM in Warsaw, graduating in 1951. In an initial period of activity he took an interest in folk music from the Podhale region in southern Poland...
. He has been a distinguished member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
30 years.
Biography
David Noon was born on 23 July 1946 in Johnstown, PennsylvaniaJohnstown, Pennsylvania
Johnstown is a city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, west-southwest of Altoona, Pennsylvania and east of Pittsburgh. The population was 20,978 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Cambria County...
. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch, Welsh, and American Indian heritage. His formal musical education began at the age of 8 when he learned to play the clarinet. Subsequently, he took bassoon, flute, piccolo, and piano lessons. Throughout his childhood, he frequently performed in choirs, bands, orchestras, and chamber music ensembles. During his collegiate years at Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
, he continued to sing and play bassoon and piano. He also began the systematic study of composition. Following his undergraduate education, he attended New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
to study Medieval music
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
with Gustave Reese
Gustave Reese
Gustave Reese was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications Music in the Middle Ages and Music in the Renaissance ; these two books remain the standard reference works for these two eras,...
. After receiving an MA in musicology at NYU, he attended Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, where he received an MMA and a DMA in composition.
In 1972-73, he was a Fulbright Fellow in composition at the Music Conservatory in Warsaw, Poland. From 1973-76, Noon taught music theory and composition and supervised the advanced ear-training program at the School of Music at Northwestern University. In 1976, he was composer-in-residence at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico
Taos, New Mexico
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, incorporated in 1934. As of the 2000 census, its population was 4,700. Other nearby communities include Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, and El Prado. The town is close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American...
. From 1996-98, Noon was Composer Artist-in-Residence at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
A prolific composer, Noon has written 232 works including chamber music, orchestral works, and choral compositions. He has written 11 string quartets, 3 piano concertos, the opera R.S.V.P., and many works featuring percussion. He has also written 2 books of poetry: Postcards from Rethymno and Bitter Rain; 3 historical novels: The Tin Box, Googie's, and My Name Was Saul; and 3 Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
mysteries, Murder at the Ballets Russes, The Tsar's Daughter, and The Organ Symphony.
He was on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
in New York City from 1981-2011, where he was Chairman of the Music History Department (1981-2007), Chairman of the Composition Department (1989-98), and Dean of Academics (1998-2006). In 2007-08, Noon was a visiting professor of musicology and composition at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, China
Central Conservatory of Music
The Central Conservatory of Music is the national leading music school in Beijing, China.Founded in 1950, the Conservatory offers courses to both Chinese nationals and foreign students, and caters for all levels from primary up to postgraduate programmes...
. Noon resides in New York City and on the Greek island of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
.
Awards
- Manhattan School of Music Presidential Medal of Honor (2006)
- ASCAP Standard Awards in Composition (yearly since 1973 to the present)
- YMF Debut Award in Composition (1973)
- Yale University's Harriet Gibbs Fox Memorial Prize (1972)
- Yale University's Jon Day Jackson Prize (1972)
- Yale University's Woods Chandler Memorial Prize (1971)
- Composers' Forum, New York City (1971)
- Aspen Music Festival prizes in composition (1969, 71, 79)
- YMF career grants in composition (1968, 71)
- BMI Awards to Student Composers (1967, 70)
Fellowships and prizes
- Chamber Music America (1993)
- Pomona College Centennial commission (1987)
- Houston Symphony OrchestraHouston Symphony OrchestraThe Houston Symphony is an American orchestra based in Houston, Texas. Since 1966, it has performed at the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts in downtown Houston....
commission (1981) - NEA commissions (1977)
- Wurlitzer Foundation of Taos, New Mexico, composer-in-residence (1976-77)
- Berkshire Music Center Fellowship in Composition at TanglewoodTanglewoodTanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...
(1974) - Yale University's Lucy G. Moses Scholarship (1971)
- Yale University's David Stanley Smith Memorial Scholarship (1971)
- Yale University scholarship in music (1970)
- Aspen Music Festival scholarships in composition (1969, 71, 75, 77, 79, 80, 81)
- NDEA Title-IV fellowship in music at New York University (1968-70)
Compositions
Influenced by StravinskyIgor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
, and Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Noon wrote serial music until 1975. It was in that year, in the finale of his String Quartet #1, that Noon abruptly wrote a volta in the style of a Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
viol consort
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
. This was the beginning of Noon’s conscious reference to styles, techniques, and formal procedures of the past. While often maintaining a fully chromatic harmonic and melodic language, Noon’s music frequently makes allusions to tonal diatonicism. The sharp distinction between chromatically dissonant and diatonically tonal music has become a stylistic trait of Noon’s work.
Formally, Noon’s music is clearly indebted to the Classical tradition with his music being frequently informed by references to sonata-allegro, variation
Variation (music)
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
, rondo
Rondo
Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...
, and binary dance forms of the past. His early and continued interest in Medieval
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
and Renaissance music has influenced many of his compositions with regard to choices of text (Boethius, St. Augustine of Canterbury, Sedulius Scottus
Sedulius Scottus
Sedulius Scottus was an Irish teacher, Latin grammarian and Scriptural commentator, who lived in the ninth century.Sedulius is sometimes called Sedulius the Younger, to distinguish him from Coelius Sedulius . The Irish form of the name is Siadhal.Sedulius the Younger flourished from 840 to 860...
, Columbanus
Columbanus
Columbanus was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries on the European continent from around 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil and Bobbio , and stands as an exemplar of Irish missionary activity in early medieval Europe.He spread among the...
, Alcuin
Alcuin
Alcuin of York or Ealhwine, nicknamed Albinus or Flaccus was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York...
, Villon
François Villon
François Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...
, Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
), constructive techniques (including isorhythm), and basic melodic material (especially Gregorian Chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
). The obvious influence of Medieval music can be heard in Noon’s Alleluias for solo flute, winds & percussion, A Medieval Reliquary for baritone, flute, ‘cello & harp, Tristan’s Mirror and Miroir Estampie both for 2 pianos, and String Quartet #7 “le tombeau des troubadours.” Blending Medieval and Renaissance with contemporary procedures has become a hallmark of Noon’s pluralistic, Post-Modern work.
Alongside music for traditional ensembles, Noon has frequently written music for percussion from large ensembles such as his Symphonia Apocalyptica for 12 percussionists to solo works such as Hardcore for solo timpanist. While usually writing for traditional percussion instruments, Noon occasionally writes theatrical pieces for found percussion (music stand, pots & pans, playing cards, brooms), for example, his works Stand Up!, Hot Grease, Nasty Licks!, Table for One, Hit the Deck, and Swept Away.
- Serenade for English Horn and String Quartet Op. 78 – premiered March 1985 by the New York Philharmonic Ensemble.
- Sonata da camera Op. 89 – recorded on Sonata da Camera for Flute and Harp (Label: Cantilena 66035-2).
- Tristan's Lament with Rotta Op. 119 for solo harp – composed in 1993.
- Three Pieces – transcriptions of three piano works by Debussy: L'Isle joyeuse, La Fille aux cheveux de Lin, and Tarantelle styrienne for flute, harp, and string quartet.