Editing Christian Wolff (composer) (section)

==Biography==
Wolff was born in [[Nice]], [[France]], to the German literary publishers [[Helen Wolff|Helen]] and [[Kurt Wolff (publisher)|Kurt Wolff]], who had published works by [[Franz Kafka]], [[Robert Musil]], and [[Walter Benjamin]]. After relocating to the U.S. in 1941, they helped to found [[Pantheon Books]] with other European intellectuals who had fled Europe during the rise of [[fascism]]. The Wolffs published a series of notable English translations of European literature, mostly, as well as an edition of the ''[[I Ching]]'' that came to greatly impress [[John Cage]] after Wolff had given him a copy.

Wolff became an American citizen in 1946. When he was sixteen (in 1950) his piano teacher [[Grete Sultan]] sent him for lessons in composition to the [[Contemporary classical music|new music]] composer [[John Cage]]. Wolff soon became a close associate of Cage and his artistic circle  which was part of the [[New York School (art)|New York School]] and included the fellow composers [[Earle Brown]] and [[Morton Feldman]], the pianist [[David Tudor]], and the dancer and choreographer [[Merce Cunningham]]. Cage relates several anecdotes about Wolff in his one-minute ''[[Indeterminacy in music|Indeterminacy]]'' pieces.<ref>Cage, John. ''Indeterminacy'' [double LP]. New York, Folkways Records, 1959. Wolff is mentioned in piece numbers [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?4 4], [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?8 8], [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=9 9] and [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=14 14], as well as numbers [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=91 91] and [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?n=155 155], which were published after Folkways' original release.</ref>

Almost completely self-taught as composer, Wolff studied music under Sultan and Cage. Later Wolff studied classics at [[Harvard University]] (BA, PhD) and became an expert on [[Euripides]]. Wolff taught Classics at Harvard until 1970; thereafter he taught classics, [[comparative literature]], and music at [[Dartmouth College]]. After nine years, he became Strauss Professor of Music there. He retired from teaching at Dartmouth in 1999. In 2004, he received an honorary degree from the [[California Institute of the Arts]]. He was also awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (1996).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/christian-wolff|title=Christian Wolff :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts|website=www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org|access-date=2018-04-05}}</ref>

Wolff is married and has four children.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archive.soundamerican.org/sa_archive/sa10/sa10-christian-wolff-interviews.html |title=Interview with Christian Wolff |last=Detrick |first=Douglas |website=soundamerican.org |access-date=July 27, 2020}}</ref>