John Holland (composer)

John Holland (American Composer)
Born 1944 (age 71–72)
Toledo, Ohio USA
Nationality  United States
Known for American composer, performer, writer, Professor Emeritus in the Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston
Spouse(s) Mary Briggs
Children Daughter: Erica Holland, Step-daughter: Amy Briggs Bledsoe
Website http://www.johnholland.ws

John Holland (born 1944) is an American composer, author, performer, and recording artist. He is Professor Emeritus in the Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. Holland headed the Electronic Music Studio and taught music and performance classes before he retired from teaching in 2009.

Holland's music has been performed largely in Boston and New York. He has produced a number of recordings, and has published musical scores for most solo instruments (with and without digital modification), chamber music, songs, music for orchestra, concertos, operas.

For a number of years Holland has produced a ‘live’ music series in Boston, New Music at the Pozen Center, that mixes contemporary and electronic music with innovative performative features. In addition he is founder and producer of The Chocolate Ear online music series.

Holland founded the American Soundgroup in 1974, which was in residence at Massachusetts College of Art and Design from 1975 to 1985. In 1986 he founded and directed the Text-Sound Chorus in Boston.

John Holland is a pioneer of the modern intersection between art and science. In the early 1980s Holland co-founded Nature and Inquiry, an artists group that met weekly to discuss ideas in art and science. The group has presented work at the MIT Media Lab, the Harvard Smithsonian Observatory, Habitat Institute, Copley Society of Art, and Axiom Gallery. He also taught a class for three decades that introduced artists to leading-edge ideas in science. (see http://www.artscience.org)

Holland has produced many online recordings, including Symbiotica - A Cross-Cultural Mixup Vols. 1 and 2., The Continents, Listen, and The Musical Landscape. The Adam and Eve Diaries, A Web Opera based on Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve is perhaps the first opera of its kind to be composed for the Web.

In many of these recordings, there are original complementary texts that precede various musical pieces and that were intended to be read aloud in a ‘live’ setting. The texts complement the music in ways that may change the way we hear the music.

Writings, including The Chicken and the Egg - A Collection of writings on Nature, Science, and Art, Curious: An Introduction to Big Ideas in Nature, Science, and Art, If A Tree Falls In The Forest: Simple Descriptions of Complex Phenomena, Quantum Wave Theory: A Model of Unity in Nature, and Ten By Ten: Artificial Intelligence Models Accompanied by True or False Statements have been designed specifically as online artworks.

Published books include: The Nature of Music for the Performing Musician, Time, Sound Waves and Their Properties in the Surrounding Media, and Studies on the Human Ear. A book on the perception of music, 'The Musical Brain', is in preparation.

Holland has created performance texts designed to be read aloud, including Phenomena: Simple Descriptions of Complex Phenomena, Complete Short Texts for Speaking Voice, Strategies for Survival (with Complementary Music), and Facts of Life (with Complementary Music), all of which contain subjects related to nature, science and art.

In 1997 Holland produced the first comprehensive full color poster-size Acoustic Wave Spectrum. It was later presented at the MIT Media Lab and in 2007 producer and composer DJ Spooky attached it to his audio CD companion to Sound Unbound.

John Schaefer, host of New Sounds on WNYC Radio in New York cited Holland’s Natural Phenomena as “one of the notable CD’s of 2005.”Richard Perry, music critic, writes “Mr. Holland’s music has a compelling, insistent fascination…” Tia Kimberk says “John Holland’s music is often based on extra-musical ideas related to science and nature. Listening to the music informs us about ourselves and our larger context in the world.” In 1982 Holland was interviewed on National Public Radio for his recording of Music for a Small Planet in Three Parts.

The composer's scores and texts are published by American Sound Press.

All of Holland’s online music recordings and writing projects are free, and whenever possible presented without advertisement.

Background

John Holland grew up in midwest Ohio where he was surrounded by music and athletics. In the 1950's he was a boy soprano, soloing regularly in church and on television. His father Kenneth was a well-known conductor and composer, and a famed basketball star in high school and college. Before retiring from teaching in 2010, his brother David, a Big Ten quarterback at Indiana University in the 1960s, taught viola at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and was conductor of the Traverse City Symphony Orchestra. Holland’s sister, Marla Rathbun, is a professional violinist specializing in contemporary music.

Growing up, American conductor Dennis Russell Davies, a contemporary and friend of Holland, renowned conductor of the Stuttgart Chamber orchestra and principal conductor of the music of Philip Glass, was a regular at the Holland house, studying music theory with Holland’s father, and playing chamber music. In the early 1960's, Holland befriended Joseph Kossuth, also a Toledo native, one of the pioneers of American conceptual art.

Influences

Holland’s artistic influences include Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, John Cage; music, literature, science, art.

Music

Holland has produced a variety of acoustic, digital, and electronic music. In the 1970s he developed a compositional technique known as integer music that features integer groups in which an integer represents a group of musical tones, each operating independently of other groups. The integer groups generally range from 1 thru 26 tones, which conveniently correlates with the English alphabet, making it possible to construct musical scores that are based on specific non-musical ideas. The player is asked to provide specific tones within each group, while the composer creates the form and structure of the work, typically supplying remarks as to how each group is to be expressed. Many of the composer’s scores, including music for solo instruments (with and without signal processing), chamber music, and music for voice, involve the use of integer notation.

In much of his piano music, integer notation is combined with fragments of standard notation, creating a mix of complexity and order, a theme found throughout Holland’s music.

There is also music with standard notation that explores the theoretical aspects of the western musical scale, such as Mapping the Musical Genome, and String Quartet No. 4.

Holland has composed electronic music since the 1970s. Some of it is what we would call, today, ‘mixups’, often mixing unlikely musical elements, such as in the piece New and Ancient Voices, where traditional African Pygmy music is mixed with fragments from Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Quasi Moto’s hip-hop wizardry. Many of these kinds of pieces can be found in the two volume online recording of Symbiotica. The popularity of some of these ‘mixups’ is due to their reflection of current world issues in which we are still learning to live together with people and cultures that are different from our own.

Online recordings

The online recordings (mp3’s) are freely available to libraries on audio CD’s (.aif’s) with liner notes linked to the online sites.

Online writing projects

Audio CDs

Vinyl recordings

ASR = American Sound Recordings

Catalog of scores

(#) standard notation (*) includes optional signal processing

PIANO SOLO (Standard Notation)

PIANO AND ELECTRONIC MUSIC (Standard Notation)

PIANO SOLO (Integer Notation)

(the above Sonatas are part of a three-part series of 12 Sonatas, any of which may be performed in combination with any of the others)

PIANO SOLO WITH SIGNAL PROCESSING (Integer Notation)

PIANO WITH ELECTRONIC MUSIC (Integer Notation)

PIANO SOLO WITH THEATRICS (Integer Notation)

PIANO SOLO WITH PROJECTIONS (Integer Notation)

TWO OR MORE KEYBOARDS (Integer Notation)

SOLO VIOLIN

VIOLIN AND PIANO

VIOLIN AND ELECTRONIC MUSIC (Standard Notation)

ELECTRIC VIOLIN AND KEYBOARD SYNTHESIZER

SOLO VIOLA

VIOLA AND PIANO

ELECTRIC VIOLA AND KEYBOARD SYNTHESIZER

MIDI VIOLA AND KEYBOARD SYNTHESIZER

SOLO CELLO

ELECTRIC CELLO AND KEYBOARD SYNTHESIZER

CELLO AND PIANO

DOUBLE BASS AND PIANO

SOLO FLUTE

FLUTE AND PIANO

ELECTRIC FLUTE AND KEYBOARD SYNTHESIZER

SOLO OBOE

OBOE AND PIANO

SOLO CLARINET

CLARINET AND PIANO

SOLO FRENCH HORN

(integer notation) (signal processing)

SOLO BASSOON

SOLO TRUMPET

SOLO TROMBONE

SOLO TUBA

SOLO HARP

VOICE AND PIANO

VOICE AND ELECTRONICS

PERCUSSION

UNSPECIFIED INSTRUMENT (alone or with another instrument)

SMALL ENSEMBLE (any combination of instruments)

CHAMBER MUSIC

STRING TRIO

STRING QUARTETS

SPEAKING VOICE AND PIANO

SPEAKING VOICE AND VIOLIN

SPEAKING VOICE AND ELECTRONICS

SPEAKING VOICE AND COMPLEMENTARY MUSIC

CHORAL MUSIC

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

CONCERTOS

OPERAS

TEXTS FOR SOLO SPEAKING VOICE

TEXTS FOR MULTIPLE SPEAKING VOICES

Books

References

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