(b Bern, id, 14 Oct 1935). American composer. A pupil of Leonard Stein (1955-6) and Richard Maxfield (1960-61), he also attended the 1959 Darmstadt courses, where he encountered Cage. His earlier works had been Webernian, but in 1960-61 he turned to minimalist music-theatre, and in 1962 began working with repetitive drone-based music in just intonation, performed in conjunction with light shows by his wife, the artist Marian Zazeela. Much of his activity since 1975 has been devoted toThe Well-tuned Piano, a semi-improvisatory piece for piano tuned in just intonation. In 1971 he became director of the Kirana Center for Indian Classical Music.

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