OT H E R M I N DS P R E S E NTS

Rudhyar
in Retrospect
September 27 & 29, 2010
San Francisco &
Portola Valley, California

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 Other Minds Presents

Rudhyar
in Retrospect
3 Remembering Dane Rudhyar
by Charles Amirkhanian

6 Dane Rudhyar (1895–1985)

8 Rudhyar on Music and Performance

11 Concert Program and Notes

14 Exhibition Catalog

24 Excerpt from Dane Rudhyar:

His Music, Thought, and Art
by Deniz Ertan

28 Performer Biographies

30 Acknowledgments

31 About Other Minds

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 Warrior to the Light. 1952, ink drawing.

Remembering
Dane Rudhyar
CHAR LE S AM I R K HA N I A N

It was Friday the 13th, September 1985. Shortly after 11:00am, one of the legends
of modern American classical music died at the age of 90 in his home at 1639 Eighth
Avenue here in San Francisco. Not only was he one of our most brilliant instigators of
musical innovation, Dane Rudhyar was a philosopher, poet, novelist, painter, essayist,
spiritual thinker, and our leading expert on astrology, an ancient practice to which his
practice of “humanistic astrology” had lent new relevance.
Rudhyar was an exile from his native Paris and “Old Europe” which he willingly left
behind for the USA in 1916 to pursue new directions unencumbered by tradition. But by
the early Thirties he underwent another lengthy exile—this one from music itself, due to
changing fashion and the ascendance of Stravinsky’s neo-classical influence. The same
Germanic march and dance rhythms Rudhyar eschewed in order to compose his surging,
corporeal music, had reemerged to stifle his career. His own work, inspired by late Liszt,
Debussy and Scriabin but with a good deal more dissonance, and based in the irregular
rhythms of speech, was set to the side and then overwhelmed completely by a movement
of musical Americana led by Aaron Copland.

Front cover: Dane Rudhyar, Berkeley 1970.

Opposite: photo by Betty Freeman.
Back cover: Portrait of Rudhyar by Winhold Reiss.

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 Thus, from the early Thirties and for four decades thereafter, Rudhyar was only rarely
appreciated or performed. Following the conclusion of World War II, feeling defeated
because his music was nowhere to be heard, he turned to the creation of a remarkable
series of paintings influenced by American Indian styles he encountered in New Mexico.
He increased his activities in writing, lecturing and reinterpreting the symbolic language of
astrology, all the while wishing to return to his original chosen field of music.
It was a particular privilege to have been one of several who gave him that platform in the
early 1970s when I was Music Director at KPFA in Berkeley. Rudhyar had moved from
Southern to Northern California, allowing me a wonderful opportunity to delve into his life
and work. I produced several broadcasts of his music and a public concert of his piano
works, in addition to a March 1972 radio retrospective during which audiences heard
25 hours of his poetry, lectures and music, accompanied by interviews. From then on,
more and more soloists and ensembles began
to take up his early music and commission
new works. The fruit of his composing revival
includes two of the pieces we will present on
our Rudhyar in Retrospect concerts.
Days after Rudhyar’s death, my wife Carol
Law and I were among those invited by the
composer’s widow Leyla to a wake in his
honor. Friends and couples were allowed
to enter his bedroom one at a time to sit
alongside his stately but lifeless form for a
designated time period. It was the meditation
of a lifetime as the minutes passed in
transcendent silence... a chance to absorb
our loss, feel deeply our sadness and say our goodbyes. We were two drops in the
ocean of his world that included personal relationships with Auguste Rodin, Debussy,
Ravel, Stokowski, Varèse, Ives, Slonimsky, Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Lou Harrison, Maro
and Anahid Ajemian, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, and Henry Miller to mention just a
few (and only from the world of the arts). 
In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of his passing, we are pleased to share
with you the work of this unique individual. Our thanks to Leyla Rudhyar Hill for her
generous cooperation, including loaning materials for our exhibit of paintings, scores
and memorabilia; also to Rudhyar biographer Deniz Ertan, who has traveled from
England to be with us this week. We are sincerely grateful to our stellar performers,
David Abel, Julie Steinberg, Sarah Cahill and the Ives String Quartet, for their invaluable
contributions. And finally we offer our deep appreciation to the National Endowment for
the Arts for generous support through its American Masterpieces program.

Rudhyar in Retrospect is presented in association with Leyla Rudhyar Hill and the Estate of
Dane Rudhyar, and has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts
as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.

Above: Rudhyar on his 80th birthday.

Opposite: Soul and Ego. 1952, ink drawing.

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5
 Dane Rudhyar (1895–1985)
Dane Rudhyar was born in Paris, France on March 23, 1895. He studied briefly at the
Paris Conservatoire, and in 1913 Durand published his first short piano pieces and a
small book on Claude Debussy. His career and studies were interrupted by the war,
but he composed polytonal music for a radically avant garde “multimedia” performance,
Metachory, featuring abstract, ritualistic dance. Rudhyar came to New York in 1916 for
its performance at the Metropolitan Opera (Pierre Monteux, conductor) in April 1917—the
very night America declared war on Germany.

Rudhyar remained in America and reached California in 1920, where he wrote scenic
music for the Hollywood Pilgrimage Play (1920-22) and won the $1,000 W. A. Clark, Jr.
prize offered for an orchestral work by the then-new Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
He made an intensive study of oriental philosophies and music in New York and California
and was active in the founding and development of the International Composers Guild
and the California New Music Society. In 1925 his Surge of Fire (for small orchestra and
three pianos) was performed. Throughout the 1920s he wrote articles and books and
gave lectures and recitals promoting “world music” (a term he coined at the time), a new
approach to music, and the concepts of “dissonant harmony” and “syntonism.”

After 1929 the Great Depression, the pressure of personal circumstances, and
developments in the musical world stopped Rudhyar’s activities as a composer for many
years. Although there were brief interludes of composing and performances (especially
in New York in 1949-50), his time was devoted to lecturing, painting (between 1938
and 1949), and writing. He published several books of poetry, two novels, and volumes
on esthetic and social criticism. Over twenty books written between 1935 and 1978
pioneered a psychospiritual reformulation of astrology. His later books present a new,
structural approach to a multilevel, evolutionary psychology and philosophy.

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A new period of musical activity began in the early 1970s, after Rudhyar’s writings
became popular among young people attracted to astrology and Asian philosophies
in the mid-60s. In 1972 the Berkeley, California, radio station KPFA produced and
broadcast a “Rudhyar Retrospective” that included an exhibit of his paintings and a recital
of piano works. Three similar “Rudhyar Festivals” were subsequently presented, by the
University of California at La Jolla (1975), by California State University at Long Beach
(1976), and by the University of Minnesota in conjunction with the St. Paul Chamber
Orchestra (1977). A new generation of musicians and music lovers began to respond
warmly to Rudhyar’s works, of which seven records have been made.

In January 1976 Rudhyar moved to Palo Alto, California, and began composing a series
of piano and orchestral works under grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 1978 he received the Marjorie Peabody Waite Award from the American Academy and
Institute of Arts and Letters for continuing artistic integrity and achievement.
John F. Kennedy University and the California Institute for Transpersonal Psychology
awarded him honorary doctorate degrees in 1980. In 1982 he was one of six American
composers to whose music an entire program was devoted at the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D. C. Rudhyar continued to write and
compose until the time of his death at the age of 90, on September 13, 1985 in San
Francisco. His last book on music, The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music (Shambala
Publications, 1982), was translated into French and German. His other books are now
published in six languages, twenty of them appearing in French alone.

Left to right: Rudhyar as a boy in 1907; Seal Harbor, 1917; a favorite photo of Rudhyar’s, 1945; from
1923, this photo was used on the cover of Rudhyar’s biography Claude Debussy and His Work;
Iowa, 1953; photo by Andrea Cypress, 1977.

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 Photo by Betty Freeman

Rudhyar on Music
and Performance
Music is a means to communicate the psychic energy generated by authentic inner
experiences; great music is born of great experiences. Most such experiences involve
dramatic elements, because they imply struggle, inner confrontation, conflict and
overcoming. Hence my use of the term “syntonic drama.” But the term, drama, refers to
more than the narration of a series of external events or interpersonal conflicts. The musical
developments deal with crises of consciousness and are meant to evoke processes of
personal transformation and, hopefully, of spiritual growth. It is “syntonic” music because it
employs vibrant tones rather than abstract patterns of relationship between musical notes.
A sound becomes a tone only when a musician endows it with a meaning, be it individual
or collective and cultural. Music is the organization of tones, not mere sounds. Tones
are sounds which convey the quality of being inherent in their producer and thus have a
function and purpose. My purpose in composing is to attempt to induce in both performers
and listeners the capacity to live more intensely and feel more deeply.
My compositions do not belong to any particular school, nor do they follow the fashion
of a decade or two. From the beginning I was unable to accept the neoclassical worship
of antiquated forms based on the system of tonality reflecting the way of life of the
aristocratic classes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nor could I adopt the
rigidly intellectual, neoscholastic procedures of the Schoenberg school. Although I have
used the musical heritage and instruments of Western culture, I have endeavored to free
them from concepts and procedures which are no longer vital and transformative—and
first of all from subservience to a narrow sense of tonality.

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Classical European tonality is based on the principle of consonant relationship—the relation
of many elements to a “root-unity” (the tonic). By contrast my music is inspired by the ideal of
dissonant harmony, in which unity is to be achieved as the result of a process of integration
involving both development in time (melody) and the resonance of musical space. In the
former approach chords appear as strong tonal relationships, while in dissonant harmony
they become “simultaneities of sound,” areas of resonant intensity, the vibratory quality of
which is determined by the dramatic process the music endeavors to evoke.

Though I was among the first European or

American musicians to recognize the value
of Asian music and to openly promote an
understanding of non-European approaches to
the use and meaning of musical tones, I never
tried to imitate Asian, African, or indigenously
American procedures or forms. I believe that
each society has its own integral collective
psyche or “cultural soul,” the essential character
and power of which, at least in its heyday, is
released through a specific type of music. Thus
I have never believed in musical hybridization.
As a culture disintegrates, it becomes open to
alien influences which may stimulate musicians
to free themselves from subservience to the
tradition of the past; but a naive acceptance of
the outer forms and products of other cultures
is not a truly creative solution. My music flows
from the mainstream of the type of Western
music which, throughout the nineteenth
century, was in tune with the new possibilities
of personal transformation engendered by
revolutionary social and cultural changes.

The musical process should have form in the

sense that the totality of musical elements
should reveal an inner psychic consistency and
internal logic; but the musical process need
not be constrained by any of the preordained
musical forms of a particular tradition or
school. I see form in music not as an objective
factor expressing standardized, collective
responses to life and human experience;
rather it is a subjective element of organic
coherence inherent in the composer’s mind and
Top: Title page from Transmutation (1976).
individuality. My intention is not to compose Bottom: First page of third movement from
musical “objects,” as external and dependent on Crisis & Overcoming (1979).
style as the making of a chair is to a craftsman.
Instead I allow an inner, psychospiritual process to unfold through the combining and
development of resonant, vibrant tones endowed with the quality of being which the
musical composition seeks to evoke and communicate.

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 Photo by Edward Weston, 1929.

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 Concert Program

Monday, September 27, 2010

Swedenborgian Church
2107 Lyon Street, San Francisco

Panel Discussion (7pm):

Deniz Ertan, Leyla Rudhyar Hill,
Charles Amirkhanian (moderator)

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Valley Presbyterian Church
945 Portola Road, Portola Valley

•••••

Poem for Violin and Piano (1920)

David Abel, violin
Julie Steinberg, piano

Transmutation, tone sequence in seven movements (1976)

Sarah Cahill, piano

I NTE R M ISSION

Stars from Pentagram No. 3 (1925)

Granites (1929)
Sarah Cahill, piano

Crisis & Overcoming (String Quartet No. 2) (1979)

Ives Quartet

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 Program
Notes
Rudhyar composed three Poems
for Violin and Piano in Philadelphia
and Hollywood in 1919-20, but
the set was not given its first
performance until November 13,
1950, with Anahid and Maro
Ajemian at Carnegie Recital Hall in
New York City. Tonight’s program
features the first Poem, a searching
and dramatic duet reflecting
Rudhyar demonstrating for pianist Marcia Mikulak at recording
somewhat Rudhyar’s struggles
session for Transmutation, 1976. Photo by Betty Freeman.
and evolving interests at the time.
Having landed in New York in November 1916, Rudhyar faced immediate financial
difficulties and found himself working as a music copyist “in a freezing room in Greenwich
Village . . . near starvation . . . hardly able to speak English.” In the following years he made
a number of important musical connections, with conductor Leopold Stokowski, and
composers Leo Ornstein, Carlos Salzedo, and Henry Cowell, whom he encountered at a
theosophical convention in Halcyon. Rudhyar was investigating a variety of philosophies
and faiths at the time, including Baha’i, Theosophy, and Co-Masonry, but was dissatisfied
with the societies he encountered. In all, it was a time of both major upheaval and growth
for Rudhyar, and the Poem reflects that mix of restlessness and yearning. Its gestures
gather strength over and over again, pushing towards a resolution that does not arrive,
even in the moody sotto voce of its finale.
— Adam Fong; quote from Rudhyar’s unpublished autobiography
“Rudhyar: Person and Destiny”

•••••

Transmutation: A tone ritual in seven movements was composed in Palo Alto,

California, during the early summer of 1976, under a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts. It is meant to evoke some of the main phases of a process of inner, psychic,
and emotional transformation. This process inevitably has a dramatic character, as it
involves overcoming the ego and the ghosts of the personal past. It almost never begins
except out of some kind of tragic realization of what blocks the way to self-sublimation.
The decision made to overcome the past life (first section), presents mirages and
tries to distract the seeker from the process ahead. The third section tells of dramatic
encounters, of the attempt to cut away still-cherished attachments. In the fourth section,
the aspirant (or ‘disciple’) sees his or her inner life stirred by deeper longings, charmed
by dreams, and poignantly hurt by their illusory nature. In the fifth section, he or she faces
the impersonal, unyielding forces of karma and the devastating power of that which has
been aroused by his or her will to overcome. Once the ego has been battered, peace can
come—the sixth section: Compassionate love speaks within, the light descends, touching
the very depth of the psyche. The seventh movement resonates with the welcome into the

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realm of gentle power and peace. A deep melody intones words of acceptance, and the
light rises within. Then all is peace, peace profound.
— Dane Rudhyar (from the liner notes to Dane Rudhyar, CRI CD 604)
The premiere performance of Transmutation was given by Marcia Mikulak, to whom the
work is dedicated, at the Palo Alto Cultural Center Auditorium, February 16, 1976, in a
presentation by the City of Palo Alto Arts Department.

•••••

Stars, the fourth movement of Pentagram No. 3, Release (1926), is possibly Rudhyar’s
most immediately appealing composition, and was certainly one of the most frequently
performed during his lifetime. In this work an ascending succession of perfect fifths is
particularly evident on the musical surface, where they lend a quality of openness and
serenity to the sound. Stars only became available in facsimile edition in 1937. In the
1940s, pianist William Masselos rediscovered the New Music Edition publication of
Rudhyar’s Paeans, which in turn led him to other early piano works. He performed both
Stars and Granites in concerts across the country, and recorded them along with Paeans
for a CRI release in 1969.
— compiled from notes by Ronald Squibbs and from the liner notes to
Mayer/Rudhyar, CRI 584

•••••

Granites (1929) is a cycle of five pieces, played together without pause. In all my
music the piano functions as a miniature orchestra capable of producing a great variety
of sonorities and impacts. The quality and the psychic intensity of the tones are of the
utmost importance, as the continuity and consistency of the musical flow depends on
psychological more than formal factors. The performer should try to experience the tones,
to allow them to resonate into his own inner being. This is a subjective rather than objective
type of music, even though its subjectivity is free from romantic self-indulgence and lengthy
developments. It is a music of “tones” rather than one made up of “notes.” Everything
therefore depends on the quality and the sustained intensity—the “livingness” of the tones.
— Dane Rudhyar

Granites was first performed by the composer on August 28, 1929, at the Hotel La
Ribera in Carmel, California, in a concert presented by Carmel Wednesday Morning
Recitals. The major city premiere performance was presented by The League of
Composers in their Second Sunday Afternoon Concert series, on February 2, 1930 at
the Art Centre, 65 East 56th Street, New York City. Granites was first published by Henry
Cowell in the New Music Quarterly, 1932, and later published by Theodore Presser.

•••••

The four episodes of Crisis & Overcoming have no subtitles. They begin with a minor
mode which at the end is transmuted into a major realization of calm serenity, a modified
E major—perhaps Rudhyar’s symbolic salute to his European culture as he approached
the completion of his multilevelled and colorful career. The piece was written for the
Kronos Quartet in February and March of 1979, and dedicated to Betty Freeman.
— from the liner notes to Dane Rudhyar, CRI CD 604

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 Photo by Betty Freeman.

Exhibition Catalog
Other Minds is pleased to present a selection of Dane Rudhyar’s works including paintings,
musical manuscripts, and writings, as well as photographs from throughout his life,
correspondence with fellow artists, and other ephemera. Unless otherwise noted, all items
are presented with kind permission from Leyla Rudhyar Hill and the Estate of Dane Rudhyar.

HAN DW R IT TE N MAN U S C R I P T PAG E S

All pages are ozalid masters, black ink on vellum, 11” x 14”
• Crisis and Overcoming (String Quartet No. 2): Title page and 3rd movement (pp. 18-20)
• Three Poems: Pages 1-2
• Transmutation: Title page and first page of 4th movement

PAI NTI NG S BY R U D H YA R

• The Alchemist.
• The Capture. 1952, ink drawing.
• Color Harmony no. 1. 1947, 21” x 17”.
• The Cradled One. 1949, oil.
• Dynamic Equilibrium. 1946, watercolor, 21” x 31”.
• Gates. 1947-48, scratch and color on gesso board, 9” x 12”.
• Magical Patterns
• Meditation on Power. 1948, watercolor, 21” x 31”.
• Mystic Tiara. 1943, watercolor.
• Power at the Crossroads. 1938, oil, 23” x 28”.
• Sands of Time. pencil drawing, 7” x 10”.
• Soul and Ego. 1952, ink drawing.
• Warrior to the Light. 1952, ink drawing.
• The Yogi and the Sky Dragon. 1952, ink drawing.
Also on display: Portrait of Rudhyar by Winhold Reiss, pencil drawing, 5.5” x 9”.

(Exhibition catalog listings continue on page 19)

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Meditation on Power. 1948, watercolor, 21” x 31”.

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 Color Harmony no. 1. 1947, 21” x 17”.

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The Cradled One. 1949, oil.

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 Power at the Crossroads. 1938, oil, 23” x 28”.

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LET TE R S

• Three letters from Henry Cowell, each featuring handwritten music on the reverse
side (courtesy Stanford University).
• Letter from Peggy Glanville-Hicks, August 27, 1957, discussing her recent move
to Greece and requesting Rudhyar review the chart of her new collaborator, the
choreographer John Butler.
• Letter from Naru Hovhaness, wife of Alan Hovhaness, August 14, 1962, describing
their extended stay in Japan and plans for studies while there.
• Letter from Charles Ives, written by daughter Edith Ives, October 14, 1938,
congratulating Rudhyar on his work and providing a donation in its support.
• Letter from Otto Luening, March 3, 1968, thanking Rudhyar for his dedication of
Tetragams.
• Letter from William Masselos, September 6, 1953, regarding mutual friends
(including the recent birth of George Avakian and Anahid Ajemian’s daughter Maro)
and future work opportunities.
• Letter from Anaïs Nin praising Rudhyar’s writing and describing a group of fellow
artists, including Henry Miller, who follow his works from Paris.
• Letter from Carl Ruggles, September 20, 1926, describing new work, with musical
examples.
• Letter from Mimi Salzedo, first wife of Carlos Salzedo, May 11, 1974, discussing
recent performances including presentations of Varèse’s work by Boulez.
• Letters from Sybil Shearer, December 3, 1943 & September 10, 1944, discussing
recent projects and personal news.
• Letter from Dorothy & Nicolas
Slonimsky, conveying best wishes
and that Rudhyar’s music “must go
on, be published and performed.”
• Letter from Ruth St. Denis regarding
recent illness.
• Letters from Edgard Varèse,
February 13, 1924 and May 10,
1968, regarding recent projects.
• Letter from Edward Weston (right).
• Letter from Rudhyar to Henry
Cowell, September 27, 1927,
congratulating Cowell on his
first publication of New Music
Quarterly (courtesy David and Sylvia
Teitelbaum Fund, Inc. and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts)

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 P HOTO S

Nineteen photos of Rudhyar from 1907 to 1984, by photographers including Edward

Weston, Betty Freeman, Tony Milner, and Andrea Cypress

BO O K S BY R U D H YAR

• Art as Release of Power: A Series of Seven Essays on the Philosophy of Art by D.

Rudhyar. Carmel, CA: Hamsa Publications, 1930.
• A Seed. San Francisco: Ecology Center Press, 1970.
• An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformation and Its 360 Symbolic Phases.
New York: Random House, 1973.
• The Astrology of America’s Destiny. New York: Random House, 1974.
• The Astrology of Personality. New York: Lucis, 1936; later editions also on display.
• The Astrology of Transformation: A Multilevel Approach. Wheaton, IL:
Question Books, 1980.
• Culture, Crisis, and Creativity. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1977.
• Fire Out of the Stone: A Reinterpretation of the Basic Image of the Christian Tradition.
The Netherlands: Servire, 1963.
• The Fullness of Human Experience. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1986.
• The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music. Boulder and London: Shambhala, 1982.
• The Planetarization of Consciousness: From the Individual to the Whole. New York:
Harper and Row, 1972.
• The Rebirth of Hindu Music. 2nd ed. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1979.
• Rhythm of Wholeness. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1983.
• Of Vibrancy and Peace (poems). The Netherlands: Servire, 1968.

P HO N O G R A P H R E C OR DS

from the collection of Charles Amirkhanian

• Rudhyar: Paeans, Stars, Granites, William
Masselos, Piano. 1969. CRI 247.
• Rudhyar Piano Music. Michael Sellars,
pianist. 1972. Orion ORS 7285.
• The Piano Music of Dane Rudhyar. Karl
Weigl, Dwight Peltzer, piano. 1978. Serenus
SRS 12072 / CL 2161.
• Gillis, Glanville-Hicks, Rudhyar, Freeman.
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond.
Jonel erlea. 1978. Varèse Sarabande VC
81046. (includes Rudhyar’s Sinfonietta.)

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Rudhyar and Marcia Mikulak at 1976 recording session for Transmutation. Photo by Betty Freeman.

OTH E R MATE R IALS

• Program from August 28, 1929 concert at Hotel La Ribera, Carmel, California,
presented by Carmel Wednesday Morning Recitals, which included the first
performance of Granites, with Rudhyar at the piano.
• Program from February 2, 1930 concert at Art Centre, New York City, presented by
The League of Composers, which included the first major performance of Granites, with
Rudhyar at the piano.
• Flyer advertising May 8, 1935 lecture-recital by Rudhyar, presented by the New Music
Society in San Francisco’s Forest Hill neighborhood.
• Artist’s Statement by Rudhyar, two letter-size typed pages mounted on cardboard,
created for October 1947 gallery showing of paintings in Nambe, New Mexico.
• Program from November 13, 1950 concert at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York City,
which included the world premiere of Three Poems for violin and piano, performed by
Anahid and Maro Ajemian.
• Newspaper articles surrounding the premiere performance of Poems: Preview by Arthur
Berger, New York Herald Tribune, November 12, 1950; Review by Berger, New York
Herald Tribune, November 14, 1950.
• Program from February 16, 1976 concert at Palo Alto Cultural Center Auditorium, which
included the world premiere performance of Transmutation by pianist Marcia Mikulak.
• Obituary from San Francisco Chronicle, September 17, 1985.
• Obituary from San Jose Mercury News, September 18, 1985.

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 The Yogi and the Sky Dragon. 1952, ink drawing.

Gates. 1947-48, scratch and color on gesso board, 9” x 12”

22
 Mystic Tiara. 1943, watercolor.

The Capture. 1952, ink drawing.

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 Rudhyar with Leyla Rael. Photo by Tony Milner.

F ROM

Dane Rudhyar: His Music,

Thought, and Art
BY DE N I Z E RTAN, U N I V E R S I T Y O F R O C H E S T E R P R E S S , 2 0 0 9 .

In a letter of October 15, 1939, Henry Miller wrote to Rudhyar:

I think you are doing a great deal for America. But I doubt if America can do much
for you. And to be still more frank, I doubt if the art side of you is the important
one. I understand very well your attendant, fertile nature, the release of powers
unknown through wisdom and right living, but if you will permit me to say so, I think
your forte lies in continuing the role of the “mage”—in revelation and inspiration. . . .
Even if you are a good musician, painter and poet, you are still better—in my humble
opinion—as a modern philosopher, a new order of sage, the Western variety. 1

Rudhyar’s reply to Miller on November 20, 1939, is equally revealing and intriguing:
I think you are particularly unfair to American artists. . . . While we have here among
painters, composers, and architects, etc., a vitality and richness which, though
hindered by a number of collective fears, is a promise of tremendous future. . . .
Personally, Americans or the Europeans who have become identified with the life of
America, have given me all I have in the way of external influences, and I have not
the slightest desire to go elsewhere. The few weeks I passed in Italy two years ago
were the most unpleasant; something like a Sunday pilgrimage to official graves.2

Or perhaps, the answer to the question of Rudhyar’s position lies within Nicolas
Slonimsky’s words:

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 Dane Rudhyar is unique among composers in his ability to translate in musical
terms the untranslatable. . . . His music is an epiphany. Its harmonies seem to be
endless, with cadences being but preludes to the cognition of new revelations, in
forms that are philosophically cyclic, each ending being a beginning. His music
does not have to be explained; it is the explanation of a puzzle of human existence;
it is an answer to a question that was never asked. It is a searching and challenging
music. Someone had to compose philosophical music of such human dimensions.
This task was assumed and fulfilled, gloriously, by Dane Rudhyar. 3

Within this “philosophical music,” like the metaphor of “inaction in action” or “actionless
activity,” Rudhyar’s works evoke (through and beyond such innate and surface tensions)
qualities of forbearance, endurance, and composure. His work is not an attempt to
be technically first-rate nor to articulate saccharine melodies; instead, it celebrates,
stimulates, prods, and evokes together with its ambiguities and aspirations, fitting to the
special juncture it occupies. As William James comments, “New Truth is always a go-
between, a smoother-over of transitions. It marries old opinion to new fact so as ever to
show a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity.” 4

In Rudhyar’s description of archetypal man one is reminded of his own artistic positioning:
Archetypal Man stands “in the midst of conditions.” His is the “middle way,” the
way of “harmony through conflicts.” He stands poised between all extremes. In
Man the mind of wholeness encompasses all there is, was, and ever will be, in
that equilibrium which is peace; but at times it is a peace of seemingly unbearable
dynamic intensity, because in this peace all opposites meet. 5

In this respect, his musical style may be traced back to Bergson’s understanding of
evolution, which is perceived not only as “a movement forward” but also as “a marking-
time, and still more often a deviation or turning back.” 6 For the French philosopher, the
artist’s standpoint is not final; creative richness indicates “an expansion of life” within
which beauty stands for power, and life “shows a stop of its impulse, a momentary
powerlessness to push farther.” 7 Correspondingly, Rudhyar commented that “now”—like
the musical moment—is balanced “between the inertia of the past and the creative-
transformative pull of the future.” 8 Hence creative or creational time is closer to truth,
because it “remains always ‘now.’” 9

Rudhyar’s trust in music’s primordial aspects through naturalness, artlessness,

and purity inherently evokes the magical as a transpersonal and collective conduit.
Aspiring to reconcile distinct forces and tensions (which dwell within the amorphous
boundaries of conceptual, aesthetical, psychological, and sociocultural paradigms), his
music develops into and behaves like a cathartic agent for wholeness and/or dynamic
equilibrium. His musical communication relies on the rhetorics of resonance and Tone,
embracing the qualities of naturalness and straightforwardness with the Rugglesian
intention to be “clean.” Music is not so much about individual notes for Rudhyar but the
summation, the whole, and its quasi-etheric implications that heavily rely on sonority
and vibration, permeating through all that lives in and through it. At times his musical
output in its entirety resembles a grand performance with no real beginning or end—
historically, stylistically, and philosophically. By seeking liberation from the limiting mental
conceptions, technique par excellence or definite sets of rights and wrongs, by resisting

25
 systematic processes, and refusing to be
existentially destructive or (egoistically)
confrontational, Rudhyar strives for
something greater and beyond: a deeper
(homeostatic) revelation through abstract
and homogenous constructions that
coalesce and interpenetrate in varying
degrees of tension and stasis.

It is possible to trace some of

Rudhyar’s musical ideas through the
minds of other composers of the past
sixty years, including (but not limited to)
Ruggles, Crawford, Harrison, Young,
Riley, Cage, Tenney, Garland, Scelsi,
Rudhyar signing books at an astrology conference.
and Branca. During the early decades
of the twentieth century, Rudhyar’s wish for American music was achieved to a certain
extent by the ultramodern composers and the experimental tradition that followed them.
Today an examination of his views assists us in understanding the following motivations
and directives: (1) a new sense of musical space that is loyal to philosophy (Varèse,
Cage), (2) a renewed or awakened sense of the ancient and the magical in sound
through resonance (Partch, Crumb), (3) a new sense of organization and form in music
that is not just atomistic (quantity-based; intellectual) but also humanistic and holarchic
(embracing wholeness; the attitude of human beings belonging to earth, and not earth
to them) (Ives, Ruggles, Crawford).

Thus—assuming, for a moment, that it is appropriate event to raise such a question—

is there anything unique in Rudhyar’s creative oeuvre? Why should we listen to his
music today? What can we learn from it? Does he merely repeat historical styles and
influences? Or is his music a genuine whole of his own? The same way the relationship
between ascent and descent is analogously tantamount to the inner workings of
wholeness, such opposites are brought together in Rudhyar’s work, so that they may be
reconciled and released through processes of differentiation and integration. On October
2, 1955, in a letter to American astrologer, writer, and counsellor Sydney Omarr, Henry
Miller eloquently singled out Rudhyar’s vision and his loyalty to the concept of wholeness:
. . . his words, his thoughts, outweigh, indeed eclipse all others. Walking in the
hills the other day, my mind filled with his thoughts, it occurred to me that there
was a very valid reason for singling him out, for putting him above all the others
I have known in one way or another. It is, to put it in a nut-shell, that he has the
very special gift of always keeping before our minds the whole. . . . His ability . . .
to show the relation between the parts, and finally to relate the parts tot he whole,
is a most exceptional one. . . . He is so many things precisely because his sight is
always focused on the central core, on the source from which all flows. 10

Rudhyar’s musical idiom is also an example of the autumnal process that witnesses a
synchronicity of disintegrating roots and new germinations—simultaneously hinting at such
significations as sacrifice, service, and humility. As a composer, perhaps he exemplifies
both a modern “Renaissance man” figure and a perspective of sociocultural marginality.

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He declared: “What is important is not whether or not a man reaches what his society
calls success, but the quality of his reaching.” 11 At the age of eighty-two, looking back at
his life’s work, struggle, and aspirations, Rudhyar reflected:
I have done what I thought I had to do to fulfill what I had been born for. It certainly
falls very short of what I have wanted to achieve, but perhaps it may suggest
possibilities and evoke a vision in the minds of a few individuals who have had the
courage to emerge from a dreary and binding past, and whom my music and my
books may have inspired to go ahead as builders of a potential new world. 12

1 Letter from Miller to Rudhyar, October 15, 1939 (8 pp.), 5-6 (located at Dane Rudhyar Estate Archive (DREA),
San Francisco).
2 Letter from Rudhyar to Miller, November 20, 1939 (2 pp.), 1 (copy located at DREA, San Francisco.)
3 copy of statement-letter by Nicolas Slonimsky sent to Rudhyar, April 8, 1975 (1 p.) (located at DREA, San
Francisco). Printed with kind permission of Electra (Slonimsky) Yourke.
4 James, William. “What Pragmatism Means,” in The Writings of William James, ed. John J. McDermott. Chicago
and London: University of Chicago Press; 383.
5 Rudhyar, Dane. The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music. Boulder and London: Shambhala, 1982; 162.
6 Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983; 104.
7 Bergson, Henri. Mind-Energy: Lectures and Essays, trans. H. Wildon Carr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1920; 31.
8 Rudhyar, Magic of Tone, 164.
9 Rudhyar, Dane. Beyond Individualism: The Psychology of Transformation. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1979; 70.
10 Copy sent from Miller to Rudhyar (2 pp.), 1-2 (located at DREA, San Francisco). Reprinted by kind permission
of Henry Tony Miller, Valentine Miller, and George Boroczi.
11 Rudhyar, Dane. Astrological Insights into the Spiritual Life. Santa Fe, NM: Aurora Press, 1979; 142.
12 Raël, Leyla. “Rudhyar as Tone Poet: The Life and Works of a Musical Pioneer.” (Typescript.) 1977; 174 (as cited
by his widow).

Han Bennink Jason Moran Agata Zubel I Wayan Balawan

16TH OTHER MINDS MUSIC FESTIVAL

THURSDAY - FRIDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 3 - 4 - 5, 2011
Louis Andriessen, I Wayan Balawan, Han Bennink, Kyle Gann,
Janice Giteck, David A. Jaffe, Jason Moran, Agata Zubel
with Trimpin, Fred Frith, Sarah Cahill, Seattle Chamber Players, Monica Germino,
Andrew Schloss, Cristina Zavalloni, Del Sol String Quartet, plus a special
Emerging Composers concert Wednesday, March 2
For details, visit www.otherminds.org

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 Performer Biographies
DAVID ABEL’s musical activities span a wide range, including chamber
music, solo recitals, orchestra appearances and teaching violin and
chamber music, and he is noted as one of the finest violinists dedicated
to contemporary music. Abel made his orchestral debut at the age of
fourteen with the San Francisco Symphony and has appeared with major
orchestras throughout the United States. He was a winner of the Leventritt
International Violin Competition in 1964 and toured Europe under the
auspices of the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation. In 1997, Abel made
his first appearance in an electronic music context with his performance in
Paul Dresher’s Violin Concerto, one of two works composed for him and the
Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band.
Abel has been a participant in the Chamber Music West Festival in San
Francisco, a member of the Crown Chamber Players at the University of
California at Santa Cruz and has appeared at the Carmel Bach Festival, the
Cabrillo Music Festival, the Library of Congress Summer Chamber Music Festival in Washington,
DC, the Mozart Festival in San Luis Obispo and the Mid-Summer Mozart Festival in San Francisco.
Abel’s current recordings include: works by Lou Harrison, John Cage, Henry Cowell, Somei Satoh,
Paul Dresher, Morton Feldman (viola) and Peter Garland on New Albion Records; Debussy, Satoh,
Bartok, Brahms, Beethoven, Enescu and Dvorak for Wilson Audio; with Phil Aaberg on Windham
Hill; viola in Elegy for Jean Genet by John Zorn on Eva Records (Japan); and live performances of the
Beethoven, Berg, Brahms and Prokofiev No. 1 violin concertos on Three Treasure Recordings.
JULIE STEINBERG (piano) performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician. Since 1980, she
has appeared many times with the San Francisco Symphony in such world premiere performances
as John Adams’s Grand Pianola Music, as a soloist in Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, and in Michael Tilson
Thomas’s Mavericks concerts. Steinberg has appeared at New Music America, the Ravinia Festival,
Japan Interlink, and Lincoln Center Outdoors. Other performances include Le Sacre du printemps
with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in San Francisco, Seattle, and Paris. As an assisting artist,
she has performed in master classes with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Mstislav Rostropovich. She holds
a Doctor of Musical Arts from Stanford University and has been a member of the San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players since 1989.
Abel and Steinberg frequently appear in duo recitals, and together they have recorded two
sonata programs on Wilson Audio. Joined by percussionist William Winant, they established the
Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio, which is dedicated to the performance of music from the Americas
and the Pacific Rim. The Trio has received critical acclaim throughout the United States for their
commissions, premieres, and recordings of numerous contemporary works.

SARAH CAHILL, recently called “fiercely gifted” by the New York

Times and “as tenacious and committed an advocate as any composer
could dream of” by the San Francisco Chronicle, has commissioned,
premiered, and recorded numerous compositions for solo piano.
Photo by Marianne La Rochelle

Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Terry
Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, and Evan Ziporyn, and she has
also premiered pieces by Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Ingram Marshall,
Toshi Ichiyanagi, George Lewis, Leo Ornstein, and many others.
Cahill has researched and recorded the music of important early
20th-century American modernists such as Henry Cowell and Ruth
Crawford, and has commissioned a number of new pieces in tribute to
their enduring influence. She enjoys working closely with composers, musicologists, and scholars
to prepare scores for performance. Recent appearances include the Miller Theatre and Le Poisson
Rouge in New York, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and the Portland Piano Festival. On

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November 17th , Sarah will perform mystical works by Rudhyar, Scriabin, and Ruth Crawford as part
of San Francisco Performances’ Salons at the Rex series, and she will be part of the Other Minds
Festival in March.
Sarah’s most recent project, A Sweeter Music, premiered in the Cal Performances series in Berkeley
in January, 2009 and continued to New Sounds Live at Merkin Hall, Rothko Chapel, the North
Dakota Museum of Art, Le Poisson Rouge, and venues around the country, with newly commissioned
works on the theme of peace by Terry Riley, Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono, Frederic Rzewski, Phil
Kline, and many others. The San Francisco Chronicle said that “the music, helped along by the
impassioned force of Cahill’s playing, amounted to a persuasive and varied investigation of the
subject,” and London’s Financial Times called it “a unique commissioning programme that unites
artistic aspirations with moral philosophy.”
Most of Sarah’s albums are on the New Albion label. She has also recorded for the Other Minds,
Tzadik, CRI, New World, Albany, Cold Blue, and Artifact labels. Her radio show, Then & Now, can be
heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 pm on KALW.

THE IVES QUARTET

Bettina Mussumeli, first violinist; member since 2005; a
graduate of the Julliard School. A faculty member at the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music, she returned to the United
States in 2001 after establishing a major career in Europe,
where she became co-concertmaster and soloist with the Italian
chamber group I Solisti Veneti. She has performed throughout
Europe, Australia, and the Far East. She has collaborated as
guest concertmaster with the Orchestra Toscanini of Parma,
Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bolognia, Orchestra del Teatro
di Cagliari, and the Orchestra della Fenice. She also teaches
violin at Ars Musica, and has been the chamber music coach
at Oberlin at Cassalmaggiore. Susan Freier, founding member
and second violinist; attended Stanford University as a Ford
Scholar, graduating with degrees in both music and biology. She Clockwise from left: Bettina
completed her graduate study at the Eastman School of Music, Mussumeli, Stephen Harrison, Susan
where she co-founded the Chester String Quartet, winners Freier, Jodi Levitz. Photo by
of the Cleveland Quartet Competition. With the Chester, she Steven Blumenkranz.
won the Munich, Chicago Discovery, and Portsmouth, England
International competitions and was in residence and on the faculty of the University of Indiana, South
Bend.  She is a former member of the faculty at Stanford University and a former member of the
Stanford String Quartet. She has been a participant in the Aspen, Grand Teton, and Newport Music
Festivals; the San Francisco Symphony’s “Sacred and Profane” Festival; and Chamber Music West.
She has performed on NPR, the BBC, and German State Radio. She has been on the faculties
of  the Garth Newel and Rocky Ridge Music Centers. Jodi Levitz, violist; joined the Ives Quartet in
2006. A noted professor of viola and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music,
Leivitz was launched on her concert career when she was appointed principal viola soloist with the
Italian chamber group I Solisti Veneti, a position she attained while still a student at Juilliard. She has
performed as soloist throughout Europe, South America, the United States, and the Far East; she has
recorded works of Cambini, Giuliani, Hummel, Mendelssohn, Rolla, Schoenberg, and Schubert on the
Concerto, Dynamic, and Erato labels. Levitz holds Bachelor and Master of Musical Arts degrees from
the Juilliard School. Stephen Harrison, a founding member of the Ives Quartet, cellist; has been on
the Stanford University faculty since 1983. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and Boston University,
where he received the Award for Distinction in Graduate Performance. He has toured internationally
as solo cellist of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. He has also performed on both
the “Sacred and Profane” Festival and the New and Unusual Music Series presented by the San
Francisco Symphony, and for Chamber Music West.  He is currently an artist/faculty member of the
Rocky Ridge Music Center and the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop.

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 Thank You
Other Minds would like to thank the following individuals and institutions whose generous
support between July 1, 2009 and September 1, 2010, has helped make our programs possible:
Maximalists
Margaret Dorfman • Edward P. Hutchins • Liz & Greg Lutz • The
McElwee Family • Jim Newman & Jane Ivory • Curtis Smith & Sue
Threlkeld
Expressionists
Rena Bransten • Dennis Russell Davies & Maki Namekawa
• Caleb Deupree • Patti Noel Deuter: In memory of Michael
S. Osborn • Alan Farley • Andy Gold & Karen Cutler • John
Goodman & Kerry King • Mimi Malayan • Anita Mardikian & Pepo
Pichler • Tasia Melvin & Tony Bartell • Meyer Sound • Sallie Smith
& Jim Butterworth • The David & Sylvia Teitelbaum Fund, Inc.
• Michael Tilson Thomas • Steve & Deborah Wolfe •
Mitchell & Kristen Yawitz
Post-Modernists
Anonymous • Charles Amirkhanian & Carol Law: In memory of
Lawrence Halprin • ASCAP • Jon Aymon • Adah Bakalinsky
• Tom Benét • New Mexico Community Foundation & The
Marthanne Dorminy Fund • Randall & Teresa Fong • Zona &
Jim Hostetler • Lorraine & Sylvia Kaprielian • Ron & Renate
Kay: In Memory of Howard Baumgarten • Hollis Lenderking
• Jim Melchert • Sharee & Murray Newman: Honoring the
marriage of Jane Ivory & Jim Newman • Jeannette Redensek
• Tim Savinar & Patricia Unterman • Ronald Bruce Smith •
Roselyne Swig
Neo-Classicists
The Family of Justine Antheil McTighe • David Aronow Foundation
• Levon Der Bedrossian • Thomas & Kamala Buckner • Scott &
Peggy Cmiel • Cappy Coates & Veronica Selver • John Duffy
• Richard Friedman & Victoria Shoemaker • Fred Frith & Heike
Liss • Tiffiny Fyans • Gallery Paule Anglim • Kyle Goldman • Nina
& Claude Gruen • Cariwyl Hebert • Wendy Hillhouse • Andrew
Hoyem • Sukari Ivester • Dina & Neil Jacobson • Ellen Marquis •
Mr. & Mrs. Glenn H. Martin • Garrick Olsson • Terry & Ann Riley •
David Sansone • Stephen Scott & Victoria Hansen • Dan I. Slobin
• JoAnn Stenberg • Carl Stone • Trimpin: In honor of Conlon
Nancarrow, In memory of Henry Brant • Bronwyn Warren & James
Petrillo • Dale Weaver
Impressionists
Anahid Ajemian & George Avakian • Bill Berkson & Constance
Lewallen • Anthony Brown • Chen Yi & Zhou Long • Gloria
Cheng • Clark & Susan Coolidge • Anthony B. Creamer, III • Bob
Culley • Bob & Jackie Danielson • Edward DeCoppet • Dan Dodt
• Paul Dresher & Philippa Kelly • Marcia Fein • Jorja Fleezanis: In
memory of Michael Steinberg • Wendy Garling • Olga Gurevich •
Stephen B. Hahn & Mary Jane Beddow • Ron & Pamela Harrison
• Stan Harrison: In honor of Chloe & Sasha Harrison, In memory
of Isadore Harrison • Mel Henderson • Scott Horton • www.
humboldtredwoodsinn.com • Elmer & Gloria Kaprielian • Laurel
Karabian • Andrea Kihlstedt • Bill Leikam • David A. Lennette
• Eleanor Lindgren • Timothy Lynch • Patrick McCabe • Emma
Moon • Mimi Mott-Smith & John Reinsch • Laurence Pulgram &
Kelli Murray • Sara J. Newman • Stephen Pacheco • Parker Film
Company • Susan Wetzel • John & Christine Poochigian • Sara
Sackner & Andrew Behar • Allen Frances Santos: In honor of
FRXX-MOVIX • Steven Selck • Rick Shinozaki & Irene Jacobson
• George Slack • Jay Stamps • Thomas Steenland • Priscilla
Stoyanof-Roche & David Roche • Dean Suzuki • Betsy Teeter •
Lydia Titcomb • Zucchini Toast • John Van Der Slice • Simone
Wedell • Electra Yourke • Douglas Zody
Minimalists
Anonymous (5) • Samuel & Janice Abdulian • Hannah Addario-
Berry • Robert & Keren Abra • Edward Albee • Betsy & Michael
Alderman • Mike Amen • Michelle Sinclair & Craig Amerkhanian •
Peter Antheil • Mark Applebaum & Joan Friedman • Jack & Mary
Aslanian • Larry Austin • Deirdre Bair • Anne N. Baldwin • Brooke
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Basset & Margaret Maker • Mike Beckett • Carol Benioff •
James M. Bergstrom • Norman Bookstein & Gillian Kuehner •
Charles Boone & Josefa Vaughan • Roy & Rose Borrone • Linda
Bouchard & David Cole • Bob Bowlby • Tod Brody • William T.
Brown • Kenneth Bruckmeier • David Bumke • Carla Carpentier •
Antonio Celaya • Charette Communication Design, Inc. • Sin-Tung
Chiu • Katie Christ • Erik Christensen • Martin Cohn • Linda Colnett
• Bill Compton • Allan Cronin • Crosby & Kaneda • The Curhan
Family: In honor of Adora Fong • Virginia Davis • Norma Kurkjian
Derr • Jeff & Susan Dunn • Janet Elliot • Drs. Charles & Lois Epstein
• Janet Falk • Ann Farris • Claudine & David Feibusch • Richard
Felciano • Barbara Monk Feldman • Ruth Felt • Margaret Fisher
& Robert Hughes • J.B. Floyd & Pin-I Wu • Adam & Alissa Fong
• Alex Fong • Charles & Liz Fracchia • Ruth Freeman • Philip &
Velia Frost • Michael Geschwind: In honor of Kate Stenberg, New
Music Séance • Tess Giannotti & Erik Engdahl • Carroll Ginne
• Cathy Goldsmith • William & Elizabeth Golove • Joe Goode •
Scott Guitteau • Joan & David Halperin • Susan & Robert Hersey
• John Hillyer • Geoffrey B. Hosker • Wayne & Laurel Huber • Joan
Jeanrenaud • Catherine Jennnings • Dan Joseph • John Kallenberg •
Steve Kandell • Nancy Karp & Peter Jones • Karl Kasten • Robert &
Diana Kehlmann • Greg Kelly & Kathy Down • Susan Key • Howard
B. Kleckner • Laura Kuhn • Jane Kumin • Georges Lammam • Cheryl
Laughbon • Jean-Louis Le Roux • Paul D. Lehrman • Tania Leon •
Arthur Levering • Annea Lockwood & Ruth Anderson • Gareth Loy •
Donald & Rebecca Malm • Linda Mankin • Richard Markell • Patricia
Markle • Dan Max • Gavin Maxwell: In honor of Ivan, In memory
of Sally • April McMahon • Susan Miller • Daniel Murphy • Murray
Street Productions • Marilyn Naparst • Dr. & Mrs. Allen Odian • Ben
& Armorel Ohannesian • Adam Overton • Paul Pappas • Ed Patuto •
Albert Pietsch • Robert & Michele Place • Robert Potter • Tim Price
• Shulamit Ran • Vicki Rand • Jane & Larry Reed • Ron Reneau •
Dorothy Renzi • Tony Reveaux • Robert Rheem • Dawn Richardson
• John Rockwell • Jane Roos & Jean-Louis Le Roux • Judith Rosen •
Fred Rosenblum • Thierry Rosset • Vivienne Rowe • Joseph Saah •
Donald Salper • Eleonor Sandresky • Dieter & Erika Scherer • Stan
Shaff • William Sharp • Gordon & Ruth Shaw • Judith Sherman &
Curtis Macomber • Robert Harshorn Shimshak • Kenneth Silverman
• Alan Snitow • Dale & Nicolas Sophiea • Mary Stofflet • Barron
Storey • Leslie Swaha & Scott Lewis • Charles & Mary Tateosian •
Marta Tobey • Voline • Patricia Walters • Robert & Martha Warnock
• Gordon Waters • Jane Wattenberg • John Wehrle • Wendy
Welker • Brad Wells • Christopher White • Richard A. Wilson
• Richard F. Worn • Pam Wunderlich • Fred & Katinka Wyle •
Yellow Radio, Sebastian Mendes • Mike Zimmerman • Eva-Maria
Zimmermann & Charlton Lee
Grantors
Anonymous • American Composers Forum • Amphion Foundation
• BMI Foundation, Inc. • Consulate General of the Netherlands •
The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. • Alice M. Ditson Fund
of Columbia University • Foundation for Contemporary Arts •
Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation • Wallace Alexander Gerbode
Foundation • Grants for the Arts/SF Hotel Tax Fund • William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation • James Irvine Foundation • The MAP
Fund • Ross McKee Foundation • Meet the Composer: Creative
Connections • National Endowment for the Arts • Netherland-
America Foundation • New Spectrum Foundation • Barbro Osher
Pro Suecia Foundation • Bernard Osher Foundation • Polish
Cultural Institute • San Francisco Arts Commission • Thendara
Foundation • Zellerbach Family Foundation
In-Kind
Arizmendi Bakery • Atthowe Fine Art Services • Field Recordings
• Fog Building • Internet Archive • La Mediteranee • Neuro Drinks •
San Francisco Herb Company • Willows Market
Special Thanks
Sarah Cahill • Charles Calhoun • Richard Friedman • Cariwyl
Hebert • Leyla & Stephen Hill
Trimpin Margaret Leng Tan Daniel Bernard Roumain John Cage Laurie Anderson

OTHER MINDS, INC., is dedicated to the encouragement and propagation of contemporary

music in all its forms through concerts, workshops and conferences that bring together artists and
audiences of diverse traditions, generations and cultural backgrounds. By fostering cross-cultural
exchange and creative dialogue, and by encouraging exploration of areas in new music seldom
touched upon by mainstream music institutions, Other Minds is committed to expanding and
reshaping the definition of what constitutes “serious music.”

Staff Board of Directors Board of Advisors

Charles Amirkhanian Curtis Smith Muhal Richard Abrams
Executive & Artistic Director President Laurie Anderson
Adam Fong Andrew Gold Gavin Bryars
Associate Director Vice President Brian Eno
Emma Moon Jim Newman Fred Frith
Development Director Treasurer Philip Glass
David Harrington
Adrienne Cardwell Richard Friedman
Executive Assistant & Secretary Ben Johnston
Preservation Project Director Joëlle Léandre
Charles Amirkhanian George Lewis
Betsy Teeter Anthony Brown
Business Manager Meredith Monk
John Goodman Kent Nagano
Stephen Upjohn Cariwyl Hebert Yoko S. Nancarrow
Librarian Charles Céleste Hutchins Michael Nyman
Kathryn King Sukari Ivester Terry Riley
Publicist Eric Kuehnl David Robertson
Jim Newman Caren Meghreblian Ned Rorem
Webmaster Steve Wolfe Frederic Rzewski
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Richard Friedman
Host, “Music From Other Minds” Morton Subotnick
Allen Wilner Tan Dun
Lighting Trimpin
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Recording Julia Wolfe
Ellen Shershow-Peña
Photography
Wayne Smith
Design

Peter Lamons
Ella Lindgren
Brent Miller
Volunteers

333 Valencia Street, Suite 303, San Francisco, CA 94103 USA

phone: 415.934.8134 fax: 415.934.8136 email: otherminds@otherminds.org
web: otherminds.org webradio: radiom.org

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 Search for “Rudhyar” on radiOM.org
to hear rare recordings of his
music, a 1972 interview with
Charles Amirkhanian, a 30-minute
lecture from 1973, and more!
© Other Minds 2010

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