Jon Appleton

De 1957 a 1961, Appleton estudió en el Reed College de Portland, Oregón . Estos años marcaron su futuro: compuso para sus compañeros, quienes interpretaban todas sus composiciones; decidió dedicarse a la docencia universitaria; y en 1959 contrajo matrimonio con su primera esposa, también estudiante, Georganna Towne. Tras graduarse del Reed College, Appleton se mudó a San Francisco, California , donde nació su primera hija (Jennifer Appleton). Simultáneamente, estudió composición con Andrew Imbrie en la Universidad de California, Berkeley ; colaboró ​​con el escritor Willard S. Bain (1938-2000) en la escritura de comedias musicales; y trabajó como asistente de compras en los grandes almacenes Macy's .

Entre 1962 y 1963, Appleton fue profesor de música en la escuela Verde Valley en Sedona, Arizona , donde dirigió el coro y la orquesta , impartió clases de teoría musical , historia y piano .

De 1963 a 1966, Appleton fue estudiante de posgrado en la Universidad de Oregón en Eugene, Oregón , donde estudió con Homer Keller , Henri Lazarof , Felix Salzer y Robert Trotter . Fue allí donde montó un estudio de música electrónica rudimentario y compuso sus primeras obras en este género. Su tesis fue una obra orquestal, Después de "Desnudo bajando una escalera" . La mayor parte de la música instrumental y vocal que compuso en esta época empleaba la técnica serial , que le apasionaba. Durante sus años en Eugene, entabló una amistad de por vida con el pianista Gabriel Chodos .

En 1966, gracias a sus primeras composiciones electrónicas, Vladimir Ussachevsky, de la Universidad de Columbia, lo invitó a estudiar en el Centro de Música Electrónica Columbia-Princeton . Se convirtió en un defensor de la música electrónica y entabló amistad con los compositores Charles Dodge , Emmanuel Ghent y Richard Taruskin .

Entre 1966 y 1968 , la Universidad de Oakland en Rochester, Michigan , lo contrató para establecer un estudio de música electrónica. Cuando los directivos de la universidad incumplieron su promesa, renunció y aceptó un puesto en el Dartmouth College . Ese mismo año nació su hijo, Jon Jason Appleton ( también conocido como JJ Appleton; nacido el 19 de abril de 1967).

En el Dartmouth College, el trabajo de Appleton en música electrónica fue generosamente alentado por la administración del presidente John G. Kemeny y por una generosa donación de Gerald Bregman '54. El estudio de música electrónica Bregman fue uno de los estudios pioneros en las universidades estadounidenses y se convirtió en un centro para muchos compositores visitantes. Dos de ellos, Lars-Gunnar Bodin (1935, Estocolmo, Suecia – 2021) y Jean-Claude Risset (nacido en 1938, LePuy, Francia ), se convirtieron en importantes colegas a lo largo de la vida de Appleton. En 1970, Appleton también recibió la influencia del trabajo del "padre" de la música por computadora, Max V. Mathews, y de los compositores franceses François Bayle , Beatriz Ferreyra y Michel Redolfi.

It was at this time that he initiated the first competition for electronic music that was held for three years at Dartmouth College.

In 1969 Appleton's first recordings were published (Syntonic Menagerie and Human Music – the latter in collaboration with jazz musician Don Cherry – on the Flying Dutchman label,^[3] produced by Bob Thiele.

In 1973 Appleton began his collaboration with engineers Sydney Alonso and Cameron Jones, which led to the creation of the Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer and ultimately the Synclavier.^[2] However, it was not until the 1980s that Appleton composed his best works for this digitalsynthesizer and on which he gave concerts of his own music for the following decade.

His love of Sweden led Appleton to leave Dartmouth College in 1976–1977 and become the director of Elektronmusikstudion, Sweden's national center for electronic music. His difficulty with the Swedish bureaucracy led to his resignation and he returned to Norwich, Vermont, as a partner, for one year, in the newly formed firm New England Digital Corporation that had begun to manufacture the Synclavier. The following year he returned to the faculty of Dartmouth College.

It was also during this time in his life that Appleton developed a serious interest in the music of Polynesia and Micronesia. He led a group of Dartmouth students to the Kingdom of Tonga and later received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to train radio personnel on the Micronesian islands of Chuuk and Pohnpei to record and broadcast their own music.

It was during this period that Appleton began to compose his best computer music and live-electronic music. Many of his works for this genre were first premiered at the annual festival held by the Groupe de Musique Experimentale de Bourges (France) and at Fylkingen in Stockholm, Sweden.

During his time in Bourges, Appleton became a founding member of the International Confederation for Electro-Acoustic Music (). His stimulating interaction with composers from many nations led him to believe that a similar organization in the United States might help raise the profile of electro-acoustic music in his own country. In 1984, together with a small group of like-minded composers, Appleton helped establish the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS). He ultimately served for a time as president of the society.

In the summer of 1984 Appleton helped Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, release its first recordings of electro-acoustic music. According to Asch's wishes, these recordings have remained in print under the Smithsonian/Folkways auspices.

The decade of the 1990s saw Appleton spending increasing amount of time abroad: teaching at Keio University (Mita) in Tokyo, Japan, for three years and frequently visiting Moscow, Russia, where he was inspired by the enthusiasm of young composers. He encouraged the composer/engineer Andre Smirnov to establish the Theremin Center at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. Appleton was first introduced to Russian musicians and artists by the choral conductor/ethnologist Dmitri Pokrovsky (1944–1996) and this began his compositional return to instrumental and choral music, much of it composed for the pianist Julia Turkina and cellist Alexander Zagorinsky. In an essay entitled "How I Became a Russian Composer" (2009) Appleton explains his love of Russian music and culture that he believes his stepfather, Alexander Walden, instilled in him.^[4]

Also in this decade Appleton composed two full-length operas for a choir of 1500 children and professional orchestra. The works, HOPI: La naissance de Desert and Le Dernier Voyage de Jean-Gallup de la Perouse, were conducted by Alain Joutard and commissioned by the Delegation Departmental à la Musique et à la Danse of the Conseil General des Alpes-Maritimes in Nice, France.