Kaleidoscope MusArt

“The role of any artist is to reinterpret human existence by means of the conscious transformation of his experience. He does this by ordering the media that he has chosen in such a manner that his fellowmen gain new perspectives on their shared experiences; that they realize new dimensions of perception and expression and thereby broaden the scope of their existence.” – Olly Wilson¹

Vastly influential composer, teacher, and musicologist, Olly Wilson composed music in a wide variety of styles and media.  Born in St. Louis in 1937. He grew up studying piano and clarinet and performing in many genres, including classical, jazz, blues, and gospel.²  Wilson saw himself as part of a lineage of African American composers dating back to the early 19th century bandleader Frank Johnson, continuing with composers such as Harry Burleigh and William Grant Still, and composers of his own generation such as George Walker and T.J. Anderson. He was also influenced by Igor Stravinsky, Edgard Varèse, Luciano Berio, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. ³

While composing a prolific body of works, Wilson also maintained full time academic positions throughout his career. One of the most influential compositional and musicological pedagogues of his era, Wilson taught at Florida A&M University, Oberlin Conservatory, and UC Berkeley, where he was also the Chair of the Composition Department. He founded the first electronic music studio at an American conservatory, at Oberlin in 1967, which would become a program known as TIMARA – Technology in Music and Related Arts.

The first work we would like to share is Wilson’s Cetus, written in 1967. The work was created in the Studio for Experimental Music at the University of Illinois, and won Dartmouth College’s First International Electronic Music Competition in 1968.⁴ Olly Wilson wrote about the work: “the compositional process characteristic of the “classical tape studio” (the mutation of a few basic electronic signals by means of filters, signal modifiers, and recording processes) was employed in the realization of this work and was enhanced by means of certain instruments which permit improvisation by synthesized sound. Cetus contains passages which were improvised by the composer as well as sections realized by classical tape studio procedures. The master of this work was prepared on a two channel tape. Under the ideal circumstances it should be performed with multiple speakers surrounding the auditor.” ⁵

As a musicologist and scholar of African and African American music, Wilson originated and proposed ideas on the characteristics of Black music, codifying common traits that link different musical genres that are rooted in the aesthetic principles of sub-Saharan African music. He authored several academic essays published in The Black Perspective in Music, Perspectives of New Music and The New Grove. Wilson’s paper Black Music as an Art Form (1983) examined Black music by means of six conceptual approaches with infinite manifestations, and it was his most significant contribution to the Black Music Research Journal of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago. In this essay, Wilson defined Black music as: “music which is, in whole or significant degree, part of a musical tradition of peoples of African descent in which a common core of the above-mentioned conceptual approaches to music making are made manifest,” and he justified this cultural thread of “Africaness” as consisting of “the way of doing something, not simply something that is done.” ⁶

He received a Guggenheim Fellowship to spend a year in West Africa, from 1971 to 1972, studying African music and language, which contributed greatly to his research in this field. This was one of multiple Guggenheim Fellowships that he received, joining a list of other accolades that include a Ford Foundation Fellowship, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Elise Stoeger Prize, membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters⁷, artist residencies at the American Academy of Rome and the Rockefeller Foundation Center, and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Koussevitzky Foundation.⁸

Next, we would like to share an excerpt from Olly Wilson’s Piano Trio, performed by Rika Seko (violin), Seth Parker Woods (cello), and Kuang Hao Huang (piano), at the Fulcrum Point New Music Project series. Wilson writes: “Piano Trio was commissioned by the San Francisco Chamber Music Society’s Norman Fromm Composers Award and was premiered by the San Francisco Trio in 1977. The work consists of a central movement framed by a very short introductory movement that is repeated at the conclusion of the central movement as a postlude. The central movement opens with a largo section in which germinal elements of the basic musical materials used in the piece are presented in a manner characterized by a static quality. This static quality is brought about primarily by the lack of a discernible pulse and a slow rate of change of musical events. Following a brief pause, this section gradually evolves into a contrasting allegro section in which a musical motive characterized by a strong rhythmic pulse eventually emerges. The remainder of the movement is based on the simultaneous development of these two musical ideas and an exploration of their interaction. This exploration includes various means of organizing musical time along a continuum from a static to a propulsive rhythmic quality.” ⁹

Wilson’s contributions to fostering new music were immense, as he helped found the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, and served on the Boards of several other groups dedicated to contemporary music, including the Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundations, and The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. His works were commissioned and/or performed by major orchestras throughout the world, including the Cleveland, San Francisco, Saint Louis, Detroit, and Baltimore Symphonies, Moscow Philharmonic and the Netherlands Philharmonic.¹⁰

Concluding this Sunday Spotlight post we would like to share Olly Wilson’s orchestral work Lumina, written in 1981 and commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra.

To learn more about Olly Wilson, we recommend reading “Hold on—A Celebration of the Life of Olly Wilson (1937-2018),” a fascinating article by one of Wilson’s illustrious disciples, composer Trevor Weston, published by New Music Box USA.¹¹

Written by Andrew Rosenblum, Maria Sumareva, and Gianna Milan.

1. “Olly Wilson.” Program notes for Parade of Premieres. San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. David Milnes. San Francisco: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts – Theater, April 21, 2003. http://sfcmp.org/programnotes/03_April_SFCMP_Program_Notes.pdf
2. Ibid.
3. Bruce Duffie. “Composer  Olly  Wilson. A Conversation with Bruce Duffie.” February 4, 1991. http://www.bruceduffie.com/ollywilson.html
4. “Olly Wilson.” Program notes for Parade of Premieres. San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. David Milnes. San Francisco: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts – Theater, April 21, 2003. http://sfcmp.org/programnotes/03_April_SFCMP_Program_Notes.pdf
5. Olly Wilson. The Avant Garde Project at UBUWEB, AGP129 – US Electronic Music VIII | Dartmouth College Competition (1968-70). http://ubu.com/sound/agp/AGP129.html. Liner Notes
6. Wilson, Olly. “Black Music As an Art Form”. Black Music Research Journal. 3: 1-22 (1983). https://jazzstudiesonline.org/files/jso/resources/pdf/3%20Black%20Music%20as%20an%20Art%20Form.pdf
7. “Search Results: Olly Wilson,” American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed September 13, 2020,  https://artsandletters.org/?s=Olly+wilson
8. “Olly Wilson.” Program notes for Parade of Premieres. San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. David Milnes. San Francisco: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts – Theater, April 21, 2003. http://sfcmp.org/programnotes/03_April_SFCMP_Program_Notes.pdf
9. Stephen Burns. “Olly Wilson.” Program notes for The Black Composer Speaks. Fulcrum Point New Music Project. Stephen Burns. Urbana: Foellinger Great Hall, February 9, 2017. https://krannertcenter.com/sites/krannertcenter.com/files/1617_KCPAprogram_BlackComposerSpeaks_WEB.pdf
10. “Olly Wilson.” Program notes for Parade of Premieres. San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. David Milnes. San Francisco: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts – Theater, April 21, 2003. http://sfcmp.org/programnotes/03_April_SFCMP_Program_Notes.pdf
11. Trevor Weston. “Hold On– A Celebration of the Life of Olly Wilson (1937-2018).” New Music USA.Published on March 30, 2018. https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/hold-on-a-celebration-of-the-life-of-olly-wilson/