Noah Creshevsky

Noah Creshevsky (January 31, 1945 – December 3, 2020) was a composer and electronic musician born in Rochester, New York. He used the term hyperrealism to describe his work.[1]

Biography

Trained in composition by Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Luciano Berio at the Juilliard School, Creshevsky lived and worked in New York beginning in 1966.[2] He taught at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York for thirty-one years, serving as Director of the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music (BC-CCM) from 1994 to 1999.[3] He also served on the faculties of Juilliard and Hunter College, and has been a visiting professor at Princeton University.

Creshevsky began composing electronic music in 1971. His musical vocabulary used bits of words, songs, and instrumental sounds. By fusing opposites—such as music and noise, comprehensible and incomprehensible vocal sources–Creshevsky attempted to make music that sounded both Western and non-Western, ancient and modern, familiar and unfamiliar.[4]

This alliance of opposites is heard both in his text-sound compositions (1973-1986)—Pop Art works in which extreme and unpredictable juxtapositions of iconographic sonic materials establish links between music and society [5] —and in later pieces, in which the integration of electronic and acoustic sources and processes “creates virtual ‘superperformers’ by using the sounds of traditional instruments pushed past the capacities of human performance.” [6] Creshevsky’s most recent compositions are examples of "Hyperrealism", a term he uses to describe an electroacoustic language constructed from sounds found in our shared environment that he handles in ways that are exaggerated or intense.

Collections of Creshevsky's scores and sound recordings are held at the music libraries of Northwestern University.[7] and the New York Public Library.

Creshevsky was interred on Hart Island at his own request. Usually burials on Hart Island are for the homeless or poor and unclaimed bodies. According to his husband David Sachs, Creshevsky intended to protest the trappings and cost of traditional funerals.[8]

Discography

CDs

Man & Superman (1992) Centaur Records CRC 2126

  • Variations (1987)
  • Electric String Quartet (1988)
  • Memento Mori (1989)
  • Electric Partita (1990)
  • Talea (1991)

Who (1993) Centaur Records CRC 2476

  • Fanfare (1998)
  • Sha (1996)
  • Twice (1993)
  • Who (1995)
  • et puis (1998)
  • Gone Now (1995)
  • Breathless (1997)
  • Nude Ascending (1999)

Auxesis Electronic Music by Charles Amirkhanian and Noah Creshevsky (1995) Centaur Records CRC 2194

  • Politics as Usual (Amirkhanian)
  • Borrowed Time (Creshevsky—1992)
  • Private Lives (Creshevsky—1993)
  • Coup d'état (Creshevsky—1994)

Hyperrealism (2003) Mutable Music Mutable 17516-2

  • Canto di Malavita (2002)
  • Jacob’s Ladder (1999)
  • Vol-au-vent (2002)
  • Hoodlum Priest (2002)
  • Novella (2000)
  • Ossi di morte (1997)
  • Jubilate (2001)
  • Born Again (2003)

The Tape Music of Noah Creshevsky, 1971-1992 (2004) EM Records (Japan) EM 1042CD

  • Strategic Defense Initiative (1986)
  • Highway (1979)
  • Circuit (1971)
  • Drummer (1985)
  • Great Performances (1978)
  • Sonata (1980)
  • In Other Words (Portrait of John Cage) (1976)
  • Cantiga (1992)

To Know and Not to Know (2007) Tzadik Tzadik-8036

  • Red Carpet (2007)
  • Psalmus XXIII (2003)
  • To Know and Not to Know (2005)
  • Once (2004)
  • Chamber Concerto (1998)
  • Jubilate (2001)
  • Sequenza (for trombone) (2004)
  • Independence Day (1997)
  • Free Speech (2006)

Favorite Encores, Music of Noah Creshevsky and If, Bwana, (2008) Pogus Pogus 21049-2

  • Mari Kimura Redux (Creshevsky)
  • Xyloxings (If, Bwana)
  • Shadow of a Doubt (Creshevsky)
  • Scraping Scrafide (If, Bwana)
  • Intrada (Creshevsky)
  • Cicada #4: Version Barnard (If, Bwana)
  • Favorite Encores (Creshevsky)

The Twilight of the Gods (2010) Tzadik Tzadik-8069

  • Götterdämmerung
  • Omaggio
  • Three Minute Waltzes
  • Brother Tom
  • Estancia
  • I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now
  • La Belle Dame Sans Merci
  • Happy Ending

Rounded With A Sleep (2011) Pogus Pogus 21063-2

  • Rounded With A Sleep
  • La Sonnambula
  • Lisa Barnard Redux
  • What If
  • Tomomi Adachi Redux II
  • The Kindness of Strangers
  • In Memoriam

The Four Seasons (2013) Tzadik Tzadik-8097

  • i. summer
  • ii. interlude 1
  • iii. autumn
  • iv. interlude 2
  • v. winter
  • vi. interlude 3
  • vii. spring

Hyperrealist Music, 2011-2015 (2015) EM Records (Japan) EM 1140CD

  • 1. Pulp Fiction (2014)
  • 2. Tomomi Adachi Redux I (2011)
  • 3. Quaestio (2014)
  • 4. Orchestral Variations (2013)
  • 5. Full Fathom Five (2011)
  • 6. La Valse (2013)
  • 7. You Are Here (2015)

Sleeping Awake (2019) Open Space Open Space CD 37

  • Electric String Quartet (1988)
  • Passacaglia (2018)
  • Sequenza (for trombone) (2004)
  • Sleeping Awake (2017)

Compilation albums

LPs

  • Circuit (1971) In Other Words (1976) - Opus One No. 45
  • Broadcast (1973) Great Performances (1978) - Opus One No. 47
  • Chaconne (1974) Portrait of Rudy Perez (1978) Highway (1979) - Opus One No. 50
  • Sonata (1980) - Opus One No. 58
  • Celebration (1983) - Opus One No. 101
  • Drummer (1985) Strategic Defense Initiative (1986) - Opus One No. 111
  • Reanimator (2018) - Orange Milk Records No. 99

Dedications

Articles and reviews

References
  1. Báthory-Kitsz, Dennis. "A Language We Already Understand: Noah Creshevsky's Hyperrealism". NewMusicBox. New Music Usa. Archived from the original on December 3, 2020. Retrieved December 12, 2020.
  2. http://www.voxnovus.com/composer/Noah_Creshevsky.htm Biography on Vox Novus
  3. http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/spotlite/news/index.php?link=102405 Brooklyn College City University of New York
  4. Creshevsky, Noah. “Hyperrealism, Hyperdrama, Superperformers and Open Palette.” Arcana II, John Zorn, editor. Hips Road / Granary Books, forthcoming.
  5. Richard Kostelanetz, Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes, a cappella books, 1993, pp. 49-50.
  6. http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0427,gann,54855,22.html, Kyle Gann, Village Voice, July 6, 2004
  7. http://www.library.northwestern.edu/music/archival-collections/creshevsky.pdf Finding aid to the Noah Creshevsky Collection at Northwestern University
  8. Jordan, Mary (July 2, 2022). "She died in a Manhattan penthouse but was buried on an island for the poor". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 3, 2022.

Further reading
  • Hitchcock, H. Wiley: 'Music in the United States Prentice Hall, 1988, p. 313.
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