There are several traditions in which pieces of music are named after a person. Music can be named after a member of the band, like the Miles Davis tune “John McLaughlin”. Dedications are sometimes used as titles, like Morton Feldman’s “For Philip Guston”.
The first substantial piece of music I wrote was very methodical music for six instruments in rhythmic unison covering six octaves. I’ve made numerous arrangements of it in the last 20 years, and I keep coming back to it for some reason. It’s the place where all the other music I’ve made comes from. So it seemed appropriate — and funny — to call it “Jonathan Marmor.”
In a future post, I’ll describe the later piece I wrote called “For Jonathan Marmor.” :)
I’ll be talking about this music and how it was made at the Automatic Music Hackathon Friday, December 6th, 2013 at Etsy in Dumbo, Brooklyn. There are several other speakers who will have more fascinating things to say, and the violin duo String Noise will play some music, possibly including “Jonathan Marmor,” all starting at 8 PM with a reception at 7:30. The arrangement of “Jonathan Marmor” for two violins is pictured here. See here for more info: http://automusic.eventbrite.com about the talks, performances, and hackathon.
Download the full score of "Jonathan Marmor" arranged for two violins here.
The code that generated the composition, arrangement, and notation for “Jonathan Marmor” will eventually live here: https://github.com/jonathanmarmor/jonathanmarmor
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