Name Paul Zukofsky Role Conductor | ||
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Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada Similar People | ||
Jo Kondo - In Summer
Milton Babbitt - Septet but Equal
Paul Zukofsky (October 22, 1943 – June 6, 2017) was an American violinist and conductor known for his work in the field of contemporary classical music.
Contents
- Jo Kondo In Summer
- Milton Babbitt Septet but Equal
- Career
- Performances
- Academia
- Recordings
- Death
- Executor
- Writings
- Selected discography
- References
Career
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Zukofsky was the son of the American Objectivist poet Louis Zukofsky and Celia Thaew Zukofsky. He was of Lithuanian Jewish heritage through his father. His mother, Celia, was a Jewish musician and composer.
Zukofsky studied violin with Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School of Music. He won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1965.
Performances
Labeled a "child prodigy", Zukofsky made his public debut at the age of nine playing the first movement of Mozart’s violin concerto No. 3. At the age of 13, he gave his debut recital in Carnegie Hall. He was reported to have gone "through a difficult program without turning a hair or moving a facial muscle" and described as a "deadpan bundle of talent". The New York Times reviewer praised his technique, but also said that he played with "little emotion".
Zukofsky specialized in contemporary music and worked with, performed, and recorded the works of such 20th-century composers as Milton Babbitt, Arthur Berger, Easley Blackwood, Henry Brant, John Cage, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, Peter Mennin, Krzysztof Penderecki, Walter Piston, J. K. Randall, Wallingford Riegger, Giacinto Scelsi, Artur Schnabel, Roger Sessions, Ralph Shapey, Harvey Sollberger, Stefan Wolpe, Charles Wuorinen, and Iannis Xenakis.
He appeared as the character of Albert Einstein in the 1976 recording of Glass's opera Einstein On the Beach (1976) and gave the premiere of Glass's Violin Concerto (1987).
John Cage composed his Freeman Etudes - Books I and II (Etudes I-XVII, 1977–1980) for Zukofsky.
Over his career, he released recordings career on the Sony, Camerata, CRI, and CP2 labels.
Academia
Zukosfky headed the Arnold Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles from 1992 to 1996. He was also known for his involvement in relocating and rehousing Arnold Schoenberg's archive, moving it from the University of Southern California to the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, Austria where the archive has resided since 1998.
Recordings
Zukofsky formed a recording label, Musical Observations, Inc., of which he was president and for which he had recorded, conducted, and edited.
Death
Zukofsky died on June 6, 2017 in Hong Kong. The cause of death was non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Executor
Zukofsky was the guardian and copyright contact for his parents, Louis and Celia Zufoksky. He maintained strict control of his parents' archive. In 2009, he wrote an open letter telling graduate students and scholars:
"In general, as a matter of principle, and for your own well-being, I urge you to not work on Louis Zukofsky, and prefer that you do not."In the letter, he required that graduate students ask him for permission to quote from his father's works in their dissertations (an extremely unusual practice), and made it clear that he might withhold such permission. Quoting from e. e. cummings, he indicated that he believed that scholars write chiefly from self-interest and any claims that their scholarship would help enhance Louis Zukofsky's artistic legacy were offensive:
I can perhaps understand your misguided interest in literature, music, art, etc. I would be suspicious of your interest in Louis Zukofsky, but might eventually accept it. I can applaud your desire to obtain a job, any job, although why in your chosen so-called profession is quite beyond me; but one line you may not cross i.e. never never ever tell me that your work is to be valued by me because it promotes my father. Doing that will earn my life-long permanent enmity. Your self-interest(s) I may understand, perhaps even agree with; but beyond that, in the words of e.e.cummings quoting Olaf: “there is some s I will not eat”.
Zukofsky wrote in the letter that his chief concern was to derive income from his possession of copyrights in his father's work, not to censor what might be said. But it might well be the case that the unusual difficulty and expense of writing about Louis Zukofsky affected the poet's legacy. Scholars such as Daniel Nazer had responded that Zukofsky's own personal views were of no import to the law and to the idea of fair use.