The Producer as Composer by Virgil Moorefield

The last third of the book falls into a very dated and white perspective. These early sections, though clearly a survey and not an in-depth history, are well considered and very interesting. I discovered details in recordings I've listened to all my life that I hadn't heard before. He punctuates the history with close listening analysis of significant tracks. In 2013 he released a DVD of a large scale piece performed on three continents, “Five Ideas About the Relation of Sight and Sound”.The first two thirds are fine. In the early 2000s, Moorefield began writing immersive intermedia works, at first collaboratively, and then as large-scale compositions. His dissertation, “The Producer As Composer”, was published in expanded form as a hardcover (2005) and paperback (2010) by MIT Press. in composition from Princeton University, where he studied with Paul Lansky, and a Ph.D. For performances at various festivals in the mid-Nineties as well as on his Tzadik Records release, Moorefield experimented with a loosely structured hybrid between compositional and improvisational processes, coining the term “comprovisation” to describe his work of that period. In the early Nineties, he led a nine-piece group that performed meticulously notated avant-rock in Europe and the U.S.

Beginning in 1994, Moorefield has released CDs of his composer-led ensembles on various labels. Around the same time, Moorefield joined the Glenn Branca Ensemble, touring and recording with them until 2008. In the mid-Eighties, he began performing with rock bands such as Damage and K-Martians, which led to a stint with experimental rock band Swans. His first recording, Transformations, scored for big band with electric guitars and horns, appeared in 1983. In 1979, Moorefield moved to the East Village of New York City and began a career as a composer, teaching himself along the way. in English from Columbia University, where he was a student of Edward Said. Moorefield attended the American School in Zürich, giving various performances as a drummer-composer in Zürich at the age of 17. By the time he was ten, he spoke three languages fluently, the result of having gone to public elementary schools in Italy, the United States, and Switzerland. Moorefield was born into a family of musicians and teachers. Virgil Moorefield (born August 9, 1956) is a composer and intermedia artist based in Rüschlikon, Switzerland.

The Producer as Composer by Virgil Moorefield