Herbert Brün
Herbert Brün (July 9, 1918 – November 6, 2000) was a
Career
Brün left Germany in 1936 to study piano and composition at the
His work as an electronic-music composer began in Paris in the late 1950s, at the WDR studio in Cologne, and at the Siemens studio in Munich.[3] During the 1950s, he also worked as composer and conductor of music for the theater, gave lectures and seminars emphasizing the function of music in society, and did a series of broadcasts on contemporary music.[2]
After a lecture tour of the United States in 1962, he was invited by
Brün began programming in
From 1968–74, he co-taught courses at the Biological Computer Lab with Heinz von Foerster (Professor of Electrical Engineering, Physics, and Biology) on cybernetics, heuristics, composition, cognition, and social change. In 1974, the members of the class published the book The Cybernetics of Cybernetics.[2]
In 1972, Brün created a new synthesis technique which generated new timbres by linking and merging tiny portions of waveforms. (Efforts along similar lines are described in the article Granular synthesis.) From 1980 on, he toured and taught with the Performers' Workshop Ensemble, a group he founded.
Brün was instrumental in helping the then fledgling Computer Music Association get started in the middle 1970s, helping host conferences at the University of Illinois in 1975, and again in 1987. He was invited to give the keynote address at their annual conference in 1985.[2]
Brün was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Goethe University Frankfurt (1999), and the Norbert Wiener medal from the American Society for Cybernetics in 1993. He helped found the School for Designing a Society in 1993 and taught there through the year 2000. His awards and honors also include the SEAMUS Award for Lifelong Achievement (2000), and a prize from the International Society of Bassists (1977). In 1969, he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ohio State University. He was one of two participants from the United States invited by UNESCO to their symposium Music and Technology (1970). He was Guest Professor invited jointly by the Hochschule der Künste and the Technische Universität Berlin (1978); Composer in residence at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (May 1982); Composer in Residence at the University of Missouri (Kansas City) (1983); and Guest Composer at the annual convention of the Percussive Arts Society, St. Louis (1987).[2]
Brün's students at the University of Illinois were referred to, often pejoratively, as Brünettes.[5] His notable students include Stuart Saunders Smith and Sarah Hennies.
Life
Herbert Brün was born to a
He was married to Marianne Brün, an intellectual, writer, and teacher of social theory; she was the daughter of the famous German actors Fritz Kortner and Johanna Hofer.[10]Selected works
- Five Pieces for piano, Op.1 (1940–45)
- Sonatina for viola alone, Op.12 (1950)
- String Quartet No.2 (1957)
- Anepigraphe (1958) (tape alone)
- Klange unterwegs ('Wayfaring Sounds') (1962) (tape alone)
- Trio, for flute, double-bass, and percussion (1964)
- Futility 1964 (tape alone)
- Sonoriferous Loops (1964) (chamber ensemble and tape)
- Infraudibles (1968/1984) (optional chamber ensemble and tape)
- Piece of Prose (1972) (tape alone)
- Dust (1976) (SAWDUST No. 1) (tape alone)
- More Dust (1977) (SAWDUST No. 2) (optional percussion and tape)
- Dustiny (1978) (SAWDUST No. 3) (tape alone)
- A Mere Ripple (1979) (SAWDUST No. 4) (tape alone)
- U-TURN-TO (1980) (SAWDUST No. 5) (tape alone)
- I toLD YOU so! (1981) (SAWDUST No. 6) (tape alone)
- Sentences Now Open Wide (SNOW) (1984)
- on stilts among ducks (1996) (viola and tape)
Publications
- Brün, Herbert. Über Musik und zum Computer. Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1971. Accompanied by a 10-inch LP recording.
- Computer-generated graphics. Computer Music Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2, summer, 1981.
- Brün, Herbert. My Words and Where I Want Them. Champaign, IL; London: Princelet Editions, 1990. ISBN 0-86298-028-3
- Brün, Herbert. Irresistible Observations, edited by Mark Enslin, Susan Parenti, Andrew Trull. Champaign, IL: Non Sequitur Press. ISBN 0-9662448-6-9
- Brün, Herbert. Sighs in Disguise, edited by Mark Enslin, Susan Parenti, Andrew Trull. Champaign, IL: Non Sequitur Press. ISBN 0-9662448-5-0
- Brün, Herbert. When Music Resists Meaning: The Major Writings of Herbert Brün, edited by Arun Chandra. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8195-6670-5(pbk.)
Citations
Notes
- ^ Gluck, 2006.
- ^ a b c d e f Chandra, 2004.
- ^ a b Enslin, 2001.
- ^ "History of EMS".
- ^ Kowalkowski, Summer 2008, p. 239.
- ^ "A Heartbreaking Letter from a Muslim American to Non-Muslim Allies". 10 December 2015.
- ^ "To Herbert Brün | Donnacha Dennehy".
- ^ "S/R 20: An Appeal from American Jews to the Green Party of Germany to Stop the Bombing of Yugoslavia".
- ^ "Twenty Israeli Composers: Voices of a Culture 081432648X, 9780814326480".
- ^ The News-Gazette 2014.
References
- Chandra, Arun, ed. (2004). When Music Resists Meaning: The Major Writings of Herbert Brün. LCCN 2003-66582
- Enslin, Mark (2001). "Brün, Herbert". In ISBN 0-3336-0800-3, 1-5615-9239-0
- Gluck, Robert J. (2006). "Electronic Music in Israel". Electronic Music Foundation. Archived from the original on 2009-07-26. Retrieved 2013-12-16.
- "History of EMS". School of Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved 2022-09-01.
- Kowalkowski, Jeffrey (Summer 2008). "Techniques for Thwarting Hegemony: Anticommunication and Gesture-Inhibiting Musical Material as Compositional Resource in the Music of Herbert Brün". S2CID 258132700. Retrieved 2021-03-31.
- "Marianne Brün (obituary)". The News-Gazette. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
External links
- Herbert Brün website
- ICMA obit at the Wayback Machine (archived February 24, 2005)
- Brün article: Technology and the Composer
- Brün article: Teaching the Function of Time in Art
- Articles and associated works