David Tudor papers, 1800-1998, bulk 1940-1996

Biographical/Historical Note

Born in Philadelphia, Pa. in 1926, David Tudor studied composition and analysis with Stefan Wolpe, organ and theory with H. William Hawke, and piano with Irma Wolpe Rademacher. He began his professional work at 17 as an organist, and in 1950 established himself as a formidable talent in avant-garde music when he gave the American premiere of the Second Piano Sonata by Pierre Boulez. Until the late 1960s, Tudor gave first or early performances of works by Earle Brown, Sylvano Bussotti, Morton Feldman, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Christian Wolff, Stefan Wolpe, and La Monte Young. His virtuosity and imagination inspired many of these composers to write pieces for him, involving complex graphic notations and performance problems which they felt only Tudor could solve.

During the 1950s, David Tudor held positions as Instructor and Pianist-in-Residence at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, and at the Internationale Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik, Darmstadt. He expanded his performance activity to include the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and John Cage's "Project of Music for Magnetic Tape."

In the late '60s, Tudor gradually ended his active career as a pianist. He had begun to experiment with the electronic modification of sound sources in the late 1950s, departing from the then common practice of fixing music on magnetic tape beforehand. By the end of the '60s, Tudor became fully involved in "live electronic music," producing his own compositions which introduced a new form of "sound art." Many of Tudor's electronic works were associated with collaborative visual forces: light systems, dance, television, theater, film or four-color laser projections. For example, Bandoneon!, composed in 1966 for the E.A.T. performance series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, called for lighting and audio circuitry, moving loudspeaker sculptures, and projected video images, all actuated by the bandoneon. As a core artist invited to collaborate on the design of the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion for Expo' 70 in Osaka, Tudor worked with two sculptors and an environmental artist, and conceived and performed new electronic pieces for the pavilion space. Tudor's sound installation Rainforest IV (1973) involved collaboration with the video artist Bill Viola, who credits Tudor with helping him develop his approach to sound in video.

Tudor had been affiliated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company since its inception in the summer of 1953. When John Cage died in August 1992, Tudor succeeded him as Music Director. The company commissioned many works from Tudor, including Rainforest I (1968), Toneburst (1975), Forest Speech (1976), Weatherings (1978), Phonemes (1981), Sextet for Seven (1982), Fragments (1984), Webwork (1987), and Virtual Focus (1990). Tudor's electronic piece Soundings: Ocean Diary (1994) comprised the electronic portion of Cage's last composition, Ocean, a work for dancers and large orchestral forces positioned around the audience.

Scope and Content of Collection

The collection comprehensively depicts David Tudor's participation in post-World War II experimental and avant-garde music. Scores by other composers, notably John Cage, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Sylvano Bussotti and Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tudor's realizations of their scores, and his electronic compositional materials, form the most significant part of the collection. Extensive project files concern the scheduling and development of his piano concerts and electronic compositions. Electronic research files with equipment catalogs and notes show how Tudor taught himself complicated mathmatics, equipment systems, and circuitry in order to gain the requisite technical knowledge to compose his electronic work. Articles and reviews, a nearly complete set of Tudor's programs, a large collection of audio tapes, videotapes, and photographs augment the documentation of his performing and composing activities.

Letters from colleagues and friends, dating from 1938-1996, exhibit the respect and devotion Tudor commanded as a serious interpreter and creator of avant-garde music. The collection also contains personal effects, including recipes, notes, and various materials concerning his spiritual beliefs, and his financial records.

Restrictions

Access

Open for use by qualified researchers.

Publication Rights

Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.

Indexing Terms

Subjects - Names

Subjects - Topics

Genres and Forms of Material

Contributors

Related Material

620 published scores, books and periodicals were transferred to the Getty Research Library in 7 separate actions. These items may be accessed by searching the Library's catalog. Search by Provenance: "David Tudor" to see a list of these materials.

3 linear feet (6 boxes) of maps, travel brochures, junk mail, catalogs and advertisements, all non-music related, were deaccessioned March 1999. 3 linear feet (5 boxes) of travel brochures, junk mail, catalogs, out of scope clippings and newspapers, and objects were deaccessioned August 1999. 4.5 linear feet (9 boxes, 1 oversize folder) of recipe clippings, ephemera related to food, health and gardening, and unused postcards were deaccessioned September 1999.

Digitized Audio Recordings

The audio tapes in Series X were reformatted by John D.S. Adams and Tom Erbe from the summer of 1999 to early 2002. In 2011 Mary K Woods migrated the masters to digital audio files. Connect to digitized audio recordings. Access is provided for private study, scholarship, and research purposes only. Audio recordings of Tudor composisitions are available online. Access to other audio recordings is available only to on-site Readers and Getty staff.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

David Tudor papers, 1800-1998 (bulk 1940-1996), The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 980039.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa980039

Acquisition Information

Acquired 1994 (Accn. no. 940073), 1998 (Accn. no. 980039, 980045), and 2001 (2001.A.132, 2001.A.182, 2001.A.183, 2001.A.184).

Processing History

The David Tudor papers were received in two large separate acquisitions between 1994 and 1998. Additions to the collection were received in 2001 from John Holzaepfel, Joy Nemiroff, Julie Martin and Billy Klüver, and Earle Brown. The first shipment arrived in 1994. It consisted of 9 linear feet of papers, mostly dating from the 1950s and 1960s and related to Tudor's piano performances. Gale Cohen and John Holzaepfel inventoried and organized this group of material prior to its acquisition. Philip Curtis processed and cataloged the collection in 1995.

The second shipment, which arrived in 1998, comprised 180 linear feet, covering nearly all aspects of Tudor's life and work. The supplement required extensive organization. Lynda Bunting began this work in June 1998. Farris Wahbeh organized series into chronological order as Bunting identified them. Kelly Nipper conducted final processing on many of the series. Nancy Perloff processed and cataloged small parts of the collection and wrote the Biographical Note. Joy Refuerzo numbered the folders.

Cataloging and processing of Series I-IX was completed in October 1999. Additions to the collection received in 2001 were processed and integrated in 2001 and 2002 by J. Gibbs: 7 audio tapes of Tudor performing in Darmstadt, donated by John Holzaepfel; personal papers and photographs of Tudor donated by Joy Nemiroff; a drawing for Island Eye Island Ear, donated by Julie Martin and Billy Klüver; and photographs of Tudor donated by Earle Brown.

From the summer of 1999 to early 2002, John D.S. Adams and Tom Erbe reformatted the audio tapes, except for a few that were damaged and a few blank and duplicate tapes. In 2011 Mary K Woods migrated the digital masters of the audio recordings and made them available online. Connect to digitized audio recordings. Access to audio recordings of Tudor composisitions is provided for private study, scholarship, and research purposes only. Access to other audio recordings is available only to on-site readers and Getty staff.

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