Editing David Tudor

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{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name            = David Tudor
| image           = David Tudor publicity.jpg
| image_size      = 167px
| caption         = Tudor circa 1950
| birth_date      = {{birth date|1926|01|20}}
| birth_place     = [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]], U.S.
| origin          =
| death_date      = {{death date and age|1996|08|13|1926|01|20}}
| death_place     = [[Tomkins Cove, New York]], U.S.
| instrument      = [[Piano]], [[Electronic musical instrument|electronics]], [[bandoneon]]
| occupation      = Musician, composer
| years_active    =
| associated_acts = [[John Cage]], [[Merce Cunningham]]
}}

'''David Eugene Tudor''' (January 20, 1926  – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of [[experimental music]].

== Life and career ==
Tudor was born in [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]]. He studied piano with [[Irma Wolpe]] and composition with [[Stefan Wolpe]] and became known as one of the leading performers of avant garde piano music. He gave the first American performance of the ''[[Piano sonatas (Boulez)|Piano Sonata No. 2]]'' by [[Pierre Boulez]] in 1950, and a European tour in 1954 greatly enhanced his reputation. [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]] dedicated his ''Klavierstück VI'' (1955) to Tudor. Tudor also gave early performances of works by [[Morton Feldman]], [[Earle Brown]], [[Christian Wolff (composer)|Christian Wolff]] and [[La Monte Young]].

The composer with whom Tudor is particularly associated is [[John Cage]]; he gave the premiere of Cage's ''[[Music of Changes]]'', ''Concert For Piano and Orchestra'' and the notorious [[4′33″|''4' 33"'']]. Cage said that many of his pieces were written either specifically for Tudor to perform or with him in mind, once stating "what you had to do was to make a situation that would interest ''him''. That was the role he played."<ref name="Holzaepfel">Holzaepfel, John. [http://www.dramonline.org/albums/david-tudor-and-gordon-mumma/notes "David Tudor and Gordon Mumma"]. Liner note essay. [[New World Records]].</ref> The two worked closely together on many of Cage's pieces, both works for piano and electronic pieces, including for the [[Smithsonian Folkways]] album: ''Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music (1959)''. Tudor also performs on several recordings of Cage's music, including the Mainstream record of ''Cartridge Music'', the recording on Columbia Records of ''Variations II'', and the two Everest records of ''Variations IV''. Tudor selected the works to be performed for the 25th Anniversary{{of what?|date=November 2021}} Retrospective Concert of the music of John Cage (May 16, 1958), and performed in the premiere of the ''Concert For Piano and Orchestra'' given as the closing work for that concert. Moreover, Tudor received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (1992).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/david-tudor|title=David Tudor :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts|website=www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org|access-date=April 5, 2018}}</ref>

After a stint teaching at [[Darmstadt New Music Summer School|Darmstadt]] from 1956 to 1961, Tudor began to wind up his activities as a pianist to concentrate on composing. He wrote mostly [[electronic music|electronic]] works, many commissioned by Cage's partner, choreographer [[Merce Cunningham]]. His homemade musical circuits are considered landmarks in live electronic music and electrical instrument building as a form of composition. One piece, ''Reunion'' (1968), written jointly with [[Lowell Cross]] features a [[chess]] game, where each move triggers a lighting effect or projection. At the premiere, the game was played between John Cage and [[Marcel Duchamp]]. ''Reunion'' is erroneously attributed to Cage in [[James Pritchett (writer)|James Pritchett]]'s book ''The Music Of John Cage''. ''Rain Forest'' is a sound installation created from constructed sculpture and everyday objects such as a metal barrel, a vintage computer disk, and plastic tubing which served as a musical accompaniment. (David Tudor and Composers Inside Electronics Inc.: Rain forest V (variation 1))

In 1969, Tudor set up India's first electronic music studio at the [[National Institute of Design]] in Ahmedabad.<ref>{{cite web |last=Keefe |first=Alexander |title=Subcontinental Synth: David Tudor and the First Moog in India |url=http://www.eastofborneo.org/articles/subcontinental-synth-david-tudor-and-the-first-moog-in-india |publisher=East of Borneo |access-date=May 20, 2013}}</ref>

Upon Cage's death in 1992, Tudor took over as music director of the [[Merce Cunningham Dance Company]]. Among many works created for the company, Tudor composed ''Soundings: Ocean Diary'' (1994), the electronic component of ''Ocean'', which was conceived by John Cage and Merce Cunningham, with [[choreography]] by Merce Cunningham, orchestral music by [[Andrew Culver (composer)|Andrew Culver]] and design by [[Marsha Skinner]].

Tudor died after a series of strokes in [[Tomkins Cove, New York]] at the age of 70.<ref name= "nytobit">{{cite news |last=Kozinn |first=Allan |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/15/arts/david-tudor-70-electronic-composer-dies.html |title=David Tudor, 70, Electronic Composer, Dies |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 15, 1996 |access-date=July 1, 2019}}</ref>

== Piano realisations ==
From 1951 until the late 1960s, Tudor (mainly as pianist) regularly performed the indeterminate work of John Cage. Throughout this time, "all of the music [Cage] composed", John Holzaepfel contends, "was written with one person in mind", and this person was Tudor.<ref name="Holzapfel">Holzapfel, J. (2002). 'Cage and Tudor'. In D. Nichols (Ed.), ''The Cambridge Companion to Cage'' (pp. 169–185). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> The culmination of this period were works that required a significant imprint of Tudor in performance. ''Winter Music'' (1957), for example, comprises a score of twenty pages, that each contain from one to 61 cluster-chords per page, with the performer deciding which of these to play.<ref name="Iddon">Iddon, M. (2013). ''John Cage and David Tudor: Correspondence on Interpretation and Performance''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> In his realisations of these scores, Tudor "pin[ned] them down like butterflies", making the indeterminate determined, such that each performance of these works was consistent with the last. He chose to 'fix' his interpretation, such that he never [[Improvisation|improvised]]  from the score, and rather each performance of ''Winter Music'' by Tudor was consistent across time.<ref>Rogalsky, M. (2010). '"Nature" as an organising principle: Approaches to chance and the natural in the work of John Cage, David Tudor and Alvin Lucier'. ''Organised Sound'', ''15''(2), 133–136. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771810000129</ref> As Martin Iddon explains: "Tudor's practice was, broadly, to create a single realisation and then to use that version of the piece in all subsequent recordings".<ref name="Iddon" />

Despite the significant role Tudor had in the creative act, "during his years as a pianist, Tudor never considered himself as a composer, or even a co-composer, of the music he played".<ref name="Holzapfel" />

However, [[Benjamin Piekut]] argues differently, drawing from the work of [[Bruno Latour]]. These fixed realisations are examples of 'distributed authorship' where "the conception, meaning and sound-world of a given composition is shared across multiple subjectivities".<ref>Piekut, B. (2011). ''Experimentalism Otherwise''. Berkeley: University of California Press.</ref> The conception and meaning of the work for Cage is always created with Tudor in mind, and thus shared across the subjectivities of these two actors. Similarly, the output 'sound-world' is shared in that Tudor's function in realising the score is decision making based on Cage's stimuli (score), and Cage's stimuli does not present a coherent sound-world on its own. Piekut goes on to align this creative-distribution with Cage's Buddhist anti-ego worldview.

==See also==
* [[Avant-garde music]]
* [[Indeterminacy (music)]]
* [[Joan La Barbara]]
* [[9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering]]
* ''[[Sea Tails]]''

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | author=Nakai, You | title=Reminded by the Instruments: David Tudor's Music | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2021 | isbn=978-0-19-068676-5 }}

==External links==
* [http://www.davidtudor.org/ Tudor Website]
* Finding Aid for [[hdl:10020/cifa980039|David Tudor papers]], Getty Research Institute
** [http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/digitized_collections/davidtudor/av.html The Art of David Tudor: Audio and Video]
* [http://www.lovely.com/bios/tudor.html Lovely Music Biographies: David Tudor]
* [https://archive.today/20130708073144/http://folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=2305/ ''Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music'' Album Details] at [[Smithsonian Folkways]]
* [http://www.bruceduffie.com/tudor3.html David Tudor interview], April 7, 1986

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tudor, David}}
[[Category:1926 births]]
[[Category:1996 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American classical composers]]
[[Category:20th-century American classical pianists]]
[[Category:20th-century American male musicians]]
[[Category:American classical composers]]
[[Category:American male classical composers]]
[[Category:American male pianists]]
[[Category:Avant-garde pianists]]
[[Category:Contemporary classical music performers]]
[[Category:Experimental composers]]
[[Category:Experiments in Art and Technology collaborating artists]]
[[Category:American male classical pianists]]
[[Category:Black Mountain College faculty]]
[[Category:Classical musicians from Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:Musicians from Philadelphia]]
[[Category:Designers at National Institute of Design]]