) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 (Anon. [n.d.]; Morgan 2001), MacArthur Fellow, is professor emeritus of composition at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 (Anon. 2008).

Life

John Eaton attended Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, where he graduated in 1957 (Morgan 2001).

Eaton is a prominent composer of microtonal music

Microtonal music

Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...

, and worked with Paul Ketoff and Robert Moog

Robert Moog

Robert Arthur Moog , commonly called Bob Moog was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.-Life:...

 during the 1960s in developing several types of synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s (Chadabe 1967; Frankenstein 1968; Morgan 2001). He innovated a compositional genre called pocket opera, opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s scored for a small cast of vocalists and a chamber group

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

.

His most famous opera is The Cry of Clytaemnestra (1980), a re-telling of some of the events surrounding the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

 from the perspective of Agamemnon's

Agamemnon

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...

 wife Clytaemnestra

Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...

, which has been hailed as the first feminist

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

 opera. It was premièred in Bloomington

Bloomington, Indiana

Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....

, at the Indiana University Opera Theater, on 1 March 1980, and received a number of subsequent productions, most notably in New York and California (Morgan 1992b).

Eaton's opera, The Tempest, with a libretto by Andrew Porter after William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

, was premièred at the Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe Opera

The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...

 on 27 July 1985 (Morgan 1985a; Morgan 1992c; Morgan 2001), and subsequently performed in the autumn of 1986 at the Indiana University School of Music

Jacobs School of Music

The Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music...

 (Anon. 2010).

Operas

• Ma Barker (written 1957–58)
• Herakles (written 1964; 10 October 1968, Turin
  Turin
  Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
  
  )
• Myshkin (23 April 1973 Bloomington, Ind.)
• The Lion and Androcles (written 1973; 1 May 1974 Indianapolis)
• Danton and Robespierre (written 1978; 21 April 1978 Bloomington)
• The Cry of Clytemnestra (written 1979–80; 1 March 1980 Bloomington)
• The Tempest (written 1983–85; 27 July 1985 Santa Fe)
• The Reverend Jim Jones (written 1989)
• Let's Get This Show on the Road (written 1993)
• Golk (written 1995)
• Antigone (written 1999)
• . . . inasmuch (written 2002)
• King Lear (written 2003–2004)

Sources

• Anon. [n.d.] "John Eaton". G. Schirmer website (Accessed 16 July 2010).
• Anon. 2008. "John Eaton". The University of Chicago Department of Music website (Accessed July 16, 2010).
• Anon. 2010. "Eaton". American Composers Alliance website (Accessed July 16, 2010)
• Chadabe, Joel. 1967. "Concert Piece for Synket and Symphony Orchestra". Electronic Music Review, no.4 (1967): 46.
• Frankenstein, Alfred. 1968. "Introducing John Eaton and his Pieces for the Syn-ket". Hi Fidelity, 18, no. 7:82.
• Morgan, Robert P. 1985a. "John Eaton and The Tempest". Musical Times 126 (July): 397–400.
• Morgan, Robert P. 1985b. "Alchemist". Opera News 1, no. 1:28–31.
• Morgan, Robert P. 1992a. "Cry of Clytemnestra, The". The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, 4 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie; managing editor, Christina Bashford. London: Macmillan Press. ISBN 0935859926
• Morgan, Robert P. 1992b. "Danton and Robespierre". The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, 4 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie; managing editor, Christina Bashford. London: Macmillan Press.
• Morgan, Robert P. 1992c. "Tempest, The (ii)". The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, 4 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie; managing editor, Christina Bashford. London: Macmillan Press.
• Morgan, Robert P. 2001. "Eaton, John C(harles)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
   and John Tyrrell
  John Tyrrell (professor of music)
  John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
  
  . London: Macmillan Publishers.

External links

• Living Composers Project entry for John Eaton
• Opera Glass