# Gerald Strang > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Gerald_Strang > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Gerald_Strang.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Strang > Source revision: 1328764195 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) **Gerald Strang** (February 13, 1908 – November 2, 1983) was an American composer who later in life turned to electronic and computer music. Early in his career he worked with [Arnold Schoenberg](/source/Arnold_Schoenberg) as a teaching assistant and became one of the disciples of Schoenberg's American period. Strang was born in [Claresholm](/source/Claresholm), Alberta and studied at [Stanford University](/source/Stanford_University) and the [University of Southern California](/source/University_of_Southern_California), where he completed a PhD in 1948. His teachers included [Charles Koechlin](/source/Charles_Koechlin) and [Ernst Toch](/source/Ernst_Toch). He was [Arnold Schoenberg](/source/Arnold_Schoenberg)'s teaching assistant at [UCLA](/source/University_of_California,_Los_Angeles) between 1936 and 1938.[1] In 1967 Strang edited Schoenberg's *Fundamentals of Musical Composition* for publication.[2] Strang became a lifelong teacher, at [Long Beach City College](/source/Long_Beach_City_College) (1938–58), [San Fernando Valley State College](/source/California_State_University,_Northridge) (1958–65, where he founded the music department and taught [Harold Budd](/source/Harold_Budd)), and [California State University](/source/California_State_University), then returning to Long Beach (1965–9) and UCLA (1969–74).[3] In the 1930s he contributed to and (from 1936) acted as the managing editor of the New Music Society of California's *New Music* journal.[4][5] During the war he interrupted his musical activities, working as an engineer at the [Douglas Aircraft Company](/source/Douglas_Aircraft_Company).[6] He also worked as a building design consultant and acoustician, consulting on some 25 newly built auditoriums in California and other states.[3][6] Until 1960 Strang composed mostly instrumental works, and at the beginning of his career was regarded as one of the early Californian modernists, a group headed by [Henry Cowell](/source/Henry_Cowell).[6] Cowell's direct influence is evident in the tone clusters used in his early piano piece *Eleven* (1931), and in the polyrhythms of *Percussion Music* (1936).[7] His style was "strongly formal, with a unifying technical idea determining the content".[6] From 1960 he began to focus in on electronic and computer-generated music, frequently working on compositions at [Bell Labs](/source/Bell_Labs) in New Jersey, where his series of works under the title *Compusition* were composed on an [IBM 7090](/source/IBM_7090) (and later 7094) computer. From 1969 he was lecturer in electronic music as UCLA. His final works for synthesizer were composed for the [Synclavier II](/source/Synclavier) at Long Beach.[8] Strang died during open heart surgery in 1983. He was survived by his wife Eileen, a cellist.[8] ## Selected works - *Eleven*, for piano (1931) - *Mirrorrorrim*, palindrome for piano (1931) - Clarinet Sonatina (1932) - Clarinet Quintet (1933) - String Quartet (1934) - *Percussion Music*, three players (1935)[9] - Suite for chamber orchestra (1934–5) - Intermezzo for orchestra (1936 - 2nd movement of Symphony, below)[10] - Symphony No. 1 (1942) - *Overland Trail*, orchestral overture (1943) - Symphony No. 2 (1946–7) - Violin Sonata (1949) - Concerto Grosso for sextet (1950) - *Three Whitman Excerpts* for chorus (1950) - Violin Concerto (1951) - Cello Concerto, with woodwind quartet and piano (1951)[11] - *Compusition*, series of 10 pieces for computer and tape (1969–72) - *Synthions*, series of nine pieces for tape (1969–72) - *Synclavions* series of four pieces for synthesizer (1983) ## References 1. L Stein. ‘Gerald Strang (1908–1983)’, in *Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute* No. 7 (1983), pp. 255–62 1. Arnold Schoenberg. *Fundamentals of Musical Composition*, edited by Gerald Strang, with an introduction by Leonard Stein. New York: St. Martin's Press. Reprinted 1985, London: Faber and Faber 1. Steven E. Gilbert. 'Strang, Gerald', in *Grove Music Online* (2001) 1. [*New Music*, Vol. 6, Issue 2, 1933](https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/New_Music.html?id=zZmGMyvrh6AC&redir_esc=y) 1. Rita H. Mead. 'Cowell, Ives, and "New Music"', in *The Musical Quarterly*, Vol. 66, No. 4 (October 1980), pp. 538-559 1. Nicolas Slonimsky. *Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians*, 7th ed. (1984), p.2222 1. Nicole V. Gagné. *[Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music](https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_of_Modern_and_Cont/WxWbDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Synclavions+Gerald+Strang&pg=PA339&printsec=frontcover)* (2019), p. 339 1. [Jean-Claude Risset. 'Gerald Strang: 1908-1983'](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3679762), in *Computer Music Journal*, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Winter, 1984), p. 5 1. *[Restless, Endless, Tactless: Johanna Beyer and the Birth of American Percussion Music](https://www.newworldrecords.org/products/restless-endless-tactless)*, New World Records 80711 (2001) 1. Recorded on *[Klemperer in Los Angeles](https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8020234--klemperer-in-los-angeles)*, Archiphon ARC-114-15 (2011) 1. [Composers Recordings Inc CRI SD 215 (1967)](https://www.discogs.com/release/11776150-John-Corigliano-Gerald-Strang-Sonata-For-Violin-Piano-Concerto-For-Cello-With-Woodwinds-Piano?srsltid=AfmBOoo6pTeJDvMjJpAsucvkfUFvVLiUZYImb0izM9uj3EoxxSYfH0qz) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Gerald Strang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Strang) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Strang?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.