OTTO LUENING OBITUARY
originally posted on
rec.music.contemporary.classical
by CRI Recordings
Composers Recordings, Inc. mourns the death of Otto Luening, its last
surviving co-founder, who passed away in Manhattan on September 2,
1996 at age 96. Luening was the distinguished composer of a
substantial body of music in all genres. He was also known for his
pioneering work in electronic music, and as an author, educator, and
arts advocate. A private service will be held while plans for a public
memorial concert are underway. He is survived by his wife, Catherine.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 15, 1900, Luening played the flute
and was trained in Europe where his teachers included Ferruccio Busoni
and Philipp Jarnach. His career in the U.S. included teaching at
theUniversity of Arizona, at Bennington College and at Columbia
University from which he retired as Professor Emeritus in 1970. Ever
the advocate of new works by his colleagues, at Columbia he conducted
the world premieres of Menotti's opera The Medium, Thomson's The
Mother of Us All and his own opera Evangeline. In the early 1950s, he
wrote landmark works for electronic tape and, with Vladimir
Ussachevsky, established what became known as the Columbia-Princeton
Electronic Music Center.
Luening wrote over three hundred works and actively composed
throughout his nineties. Among his major works are Fantasy in Space
for electronic tape (1952), Kentucky Concerto for orchestra (1951),
Sonata for Piano in Memoriam Ferruccio Busoni (1966), Potawatomi
Legends for chamber orchestra (1980), and the cantata No Jerusalem But
This (1982). His autobiography The Odyssey of an American Composer was
published in 1980. His many students included John Corigliano, Chou
Wen-Chung, Mario Davidovsky, Charles Dodge, Ezra Laderman, William
Mayer, Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen.
Luening co-founded the nonprofit label CRI in 1954 along with the
composer Douglas Moore and the administrator Oliver Daniel. He was
also co-founder with Copland and others of the American Composers
Alliance in 1938 and the American Music Center in 1939. He served as a
board member of the American Academy in Rome and of the American
Composers Orchestra and as an advisor to The Rockefeller Foundation.
He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters in
1952.
One of Luening's last public appearances was at the Fortieth
Anniversary concert of Composers Recordings, Inc. in October, 1994 in
the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center where he gave remarks
from the audience. Joseph Dalton, Managing Director of CRI, recalls:
"Even into his nineties, Otto took great interest in the condition and
trends of American musical life and he could always be counted on for
a bounty of sage wisdom and sound counsel. He was a model of the
composer as musical citizen and his guiding spirit will be sorely
missed."
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Created: August 09, 1998
Last Updated: May 28, 2000