Editing Michael Tenzer

[[Image:Michael Tenzer.jpg|thumb|right|Michael Tenzer in 1992]]{{More citations needed|date=February 2025}}
'''Michael Tenzer''' (born 1957) is a [[composer]], performer, and [[music educator]] and scholar.

== Career ==
Tenzer was born in New York City and studied music at [[Yale University]] (BA. 1978) and [[University of California, Berkeley]] (Ph.D. 1986). After teaching at Yale from 1986 to 1996, he moved to [[University of British Columbia]] where he teaches [[ethnomusicology]], [[musical composition|composition]], [[music theory]] and [[gamelan]] performance, and co-directs the doctoral program in [[ethnomusicology]].

Tenzer's compositions for chamber, solo and orchestral media have been performed in North America, Europe, and Asia, featuring performers such as [[Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri]] (tabla), [[Alex Klein]] (oboe) and [[Evan Ziporyn]] (clarinet). His publications have been recognized with the [[Society for Ethnomusicology]]'s Alan P. Merriam Prize (best book of 2000) and the 34th annual ASCAP-Deems Taylor award, and his research has been supported with grants from the [[National Endowment for the Humanities]] and [[Fulbright Program|Fulbright]]. Among his composition prizes are a [[Library of Congress]]/Koussevitzky commission for a chamber work, ''Sources of Current''. After its premiere the [[New York Times]] called it "deft, sophisticated and inventive." He received the Charles Ives Center award for his percussion quartet (1981), the DiLorenzo prize for the octet ''Daya'' (1985) for string quartet and clarinets, and the Morse Fellowship to complete his ''Symphony for Strings'' (1988). Tenzer's music is available on New World, Cantaloupe and Bali Stereo labels.

Since 1977, Tenzer has been deeply involved with the [[gamelan]] music of [[Bali]], [[Indonesia]]. He carried out several years of research and writing about it on a series of fellowships, among them a Fulbright (1982), a grant from the [[Asian Cultural Council]] (1987) the Morse Fellowship (1989), and a National Endowment for the Humanities University Teacher's Fellowship (1994). An experienced performer and teacher of gamelan, Tenzer is the author of two books on the subject: ''Balinese Music'' (Periplus: 1991; 2nd ed. 1998) and ''[[Gamelan Gong Kebyar]]: The Art of 20th Century Balinese Music'' (University of Chicago Press 2000). More recently he published [https://web.archive.org/web/20070929123158/http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Music/WorldMusicEthnomusicology/?view=usa&ci=9780195177893 Analytical Studies in World Music] (Oxford 2006). He was the first Western composer invited to compose for Balinese ensembles in Bali and has completed a series of works of an increasingly experimental character for the gamelan since 1982, among them ''Sinar Jegog'' (1985), ''Situ Banda'' ("Bridge of Monkeys"; 1989), ''Banyuari'' ("Tributary"; 1992), ''Talakalam'' for gamelan with tabla (1999), "Puser Belah" for 2 simultaneous gamelan ("Unstable Center"; 2003), and "Buk Katah" for gamelan with a nonet of brass, winds and piano ("Underleaf"; 2006). These works have been cited by Balinese critics as "an important and unique contribution to our cultural heritage". The last three compositions cited plus others are featured on the 2009 CD [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002HEDWD4 Let Others Name You] on New World records. In 1979, Tenzer co-founded the [[Gamelan Sekar Jaya|Sekar Jaya]] gamelan ensemble in [[Berkeley, California]], an organization of Americans dedicated to the performance of Balinese arts that is now internationally known. Since 1996 he has directed [https://web.archive.org/web/20070523022721/http://www.gitaasmara.ca/ Gamelan Gita Asmara] in Vancouver.

==External links==
*[http://www.michaeltenzer.com/ Michael Tenzer's Web Page]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070523022721/http://www.gitaasmara.ca/ Gamelan Gita Asmara's Web Page]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tenzer, Michael}}
[[Category:1957 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American male composers]]
[[Category:21st-century American composers]]
[[Category:American ethnomusicologists]]
[[Category:Gamelan musicians]]
[[Category:Asian Cultural Council grantees]]
[[Category:Musicians from New York City]]
[[Category:Pupils of Gérard Grisey]]
[[Category:Pupils of Martin Bresnick]]
[[Category:21st-century American male musicians]]