Composer and educator Alvin Lucier (1931-2021) passed away yesterday at his home in Connecticut at the age of 90. An innovative and highly influential figure in experimental music, Lucier transformed the way we experience sound, creating installations and compositions that explore the medium as a spatial and physical presence. Here, Lucier's close friend and collaborator Charles Curtis reflects on the artist's life and profound impact on the sonic arts:
At ninety-and-one-half years of age, Alvin leaves an almost incomparable legacy of teaching, performing, composing, organizing, writing. Seemingly impervious to success or failure, recognition or bewilderment, he has tirelessly followed the inner logic of his great task on earth. His subject is the human as listener, and his music the exhaustive investigation into the complexities of the act of listening. After halting beginnings, a complete hiatus in the early '60s, and the breakthrough of "Music for Solo Performer" in 1965, his work gathered force decade by decade, accelerating into his late eighties and past his ninetieth birthday. The last few months saw the arrival of surprising new pieces, worked out in characteristic detail and consummate composerly discipline. He has marked off a space in contemporary music unlike any other, and could hardly have done more.
But it's the warmth of his friendship and support for fellow musicians, younger colleagues, and artists that we will continue to feel and draw from. His blithe, unpretentious spirit, humor and wisdom, generosity bestowed with lightness, personal attentions given almost unnoticeably – even in leaving us, Alvin leaves all this with us, to remember and celebrate.
Alvin Lucier and Charles Curtis at Marfa Sounding in 2016. Photo by Sarah Vasquez.
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