(b Montreal, 15 March 1900; d Los Angeles, 7 Jan 1964). American composer and ethnomusicologist of Canadian origin. He studied at the Peabody Conservatory, in Paris with Le Flem and in New York with Varèse. In 1934-6 he was in Bali, studying the music that became the subject of his Balinese Ceremonial Music for two pianos (1940) and of pioneering research, culminating in Music in Bali (1966). After the war he taught in Los Angeles, from 1960 at UCLA. The hallmark of his style is sensitivity to timbres with a predilection for textures of multilayered rhythms. His best-known work is Tabuh-tabuhan (1936) which uses a symphony orchestra, a ‘nuclear gamelan’ of Western instruments and Balinese gongs.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.