Stephen Nachmanovitch
Encyclopedia
Stephen Nachmanovitch is a musician
, author
, computer artist, and educator. He is an improvisational
violin
ist, and writes and teaches about improvisation, creativity, and systems approaches in many fields of activity.
and the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness for an exploration of William Blake
. His mentor was the anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson
. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States and abroad on creativity and the spiritual underpinnings of art. In the 1970s he was a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola and electric violin and opened up many techniques now used in electroacoustic music. He has presented master classes and workshops in improvisation at many conservatories and universities worldwide, including the Yehudi Menuhin School
and Juilliard. He has had numerous appearances on radio, television, and at music and theater festivals. He has collaborated with other artists in media including music, dance, theater, and film, and has developed programs melding art, music, literature, and computer technology. He has published articles in a variety of fields since 1966, and is the author of Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Penguin-Tarcher, 1990). Much of his teaching beyond music and the arts relates to the universality of improvisation and creativity in all fields of life, and the accessibility of improvisational process to each person at each moment
In the 1980s and 1990s he created computer music software including The World Music Menu (first developed 1987, new versions through 2007), and the visual music software tools Zmusic (first presented at the Visual Music Alliance, Los Angeles, 1987) and Visual Music Tone Painter (first developed 1992, new versions through 2007).
In the years following the millennium his time has been divided between improvisation concerts on violin, viola, electric violin and viola d'amore, both solo and in partnership with other musicians, dancers, and theater artists, lecturing and teaching workshops on improvisation, writing about creativity and about the influence of Gregory Bateson on modern thought, and visual music and other multimedia works.
He is on the board of the International Society for Improvised Music and the advisory board of New Violin Family Association
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, computer artist, and educator. He is an improvisational
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist, and writes and teaches about improvisation, creativity, and systems approaches in many fields of activity.
Biography
Born on November, 2 1950, Nachmanovitch studied at Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness for an exploration of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
. His mentor was the anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States and abroad on creativity and the spiritual underpinnings of art. In the 1970s he was a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola and electric violin and opened up many techniques now used in electroacoustic music. He has presented master classes and workshops in improvisation at many conservatories and universities worldwide, including the Yehudi Menuhin School
Yehudi Menuhin School
The Yehudi Menuhin School is a specialist music school in Surrey, England. It was founded in 1963 by the violinist Yehudi Menuhin.The School also gives pupils the best musical education any specialist schools can with a number of internationally main teachers, Simon Fischer , Natalya Boyarskaya ,...
and Juilliard. He has had numerous appearances on radio, television, and at music and theater festivals. He has collaborated with other artists in media including music, dance, theater, and film, and has developed programs melding art, music, literature, and computer technology. He has published articles in a variety of fields since 1966, and is the author of Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Penguin-Tarcher, 1990). Much of his teaching beyond music and the arts relates to the universality of improvisation and creativity in all fields of life, and the accessibility of improvisational process to each person at each moment
It is the most normal thing in the world to improvise. We improvise every time we say a sentence, but we are told in our veneration of the masters that the creative process is some sort of mysterious and godlike thing only possessed by a few people – when in fact we are improvising all the time, creating all the time.
In the 1980s and 1990s he created computer music software including The World Music Menu (first developed 1987, new versions through 2007), and the visual music software tools Zmusic (first presented at the Visual Music Alliance, Los Angeles, 1987) and Visual Music Tone Painter (first developed 1992, new versions through 2007).
In the years following the millennium his time has been divided between improvisation concerts on violin, viola, electric violin and viola d'amore, both solo and in partnership with other musicians, dancers, and theater artists, lecturing and teaching workshops on improvisation, writing about creativity and about the influence of Gregory Bateson on modern thought, and visual music and other multimedia works.
He is on the board of the International Society for Improvised Music and the advisory board of New Violin Family Association
Discography
- Moon Music & Trumpetvine Sonata, 1979.
- Earth's Answer, 1982.
- Free Play, with Ron Fein, 1984.
- Wheel of Time, 1991.
- Merging at Merging One, with Ellen Burr, 1991.
- Electric and Acoustic Improvisations, Vol. 1, with Timothy Summers, 2005.
- Ludi Fecundus, 2007.
- Saraswati Steps Up to Bat, 2007.
- Stillness, as Sixth Sense, with Karlton Hester, Stephen Nachmanovitch, and Stephanie Phillips 2009.
Multimedia
- Job's Returns: A meditation of William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job, Music and multimedia by Stephen Nachmanovitch, 2002.
- Visible Music interactive visual music / synesthesia installation at the National Museum of American History, Lemelson Center, Smithsonian Institution, 2000.
- Steps, Haystack Mountain Institute, 2009.
- Taming the Mind Ox and Theater Games, 2006, DVD, Blue Cliff Records.
- Unstoppable, VIsual and computer music, 2000.
- Visual Music Tone Painter computer software, multimedia generation tool. 1992.
- Zmusic computer software, multimedia generation tool. 1987.
- First Life, visual music film, 1966–86, Premiere at UCLA, Schoenberg Hall, 1986.
- Path of Light, visual music, 1985.
- Doors of Perception, visual music, Berkeley Moving Arts, 1979.
- The Four Zoas, visual music based on William Blake, Berkeley, CA 1978.