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 | | |  | | Elias Tanenbaum |
| | | Elias Tanenbaum was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1924. Music in his younger years included studies on the trumpet and performances with many jazz bands. After serving with the U.S.Army in World War II, he earned a BS from the Juilliard School of Music (1949) and an MA from Columbia University, New York. His composition studies were with Dante Fiorillo, Bohuslav Martinu, Otto Luening and Wallingford Riegger.
Tanenbaum has composed over a hundred works in all idioms: jazz, concert hall, theatre, television, ballet and electronic and computer music, and it has been performed extensively throughout America, Europe and Japan by such orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic and others.
The composer has been the recipient of a number of commissions, among them a WGBS and one from the Chicago Symphony. Columbus (1992) was written on commission also, this one from the Westchester (NY) Philharmonic to celebrate its own 10th anniversary and the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage. It was premiered by the Westchester Philharmonic in September of 1992.
A number of grants have also been awarded Tanenbaum over the years, several from the National Endowment for the Arts - Columbus was written with one of them -, one from the Ford Foundation (a recording grant), two from the American Composers Alliance (also recording grants), and, finally, numerous ‘Meet the Composer’ grants.
Nine recordings may be attributed to Tanenbaum. Of these, Columbus and three others include tape in the orchestration. Working with/against the tape are four harps, a brass quintet and flute. Columbus, of course, featured a full orchestra.
In his professional life Tanenbaum has served as visiting composer at the California Institute for the Arts (1983) and visiting lecturer at Stuttgart Conservatory (1993) This is in addition to being Director of the Electronic Computer Music Studio and member of the composition faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City since 1970. |
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