Rudin: Classical composer, electronic music pioneer
Allentown resident worked with Moog, wrote operas, had music in Felini film
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer

PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM QUEENAN Composer Andrew Rudin reflects by the scenic vista in the backyard of the downtown Allentown home he shares with partner Tom Queenan.

ALLENTOWN — Andrew Rudin's life is being lived out in notes.

The classical music composer, who established a reputation in the 1960s through his association with Robert Moog and by pioneering synthesized compositions, most notably his Nonesuch Records album "Tragoedia," lives in downtown Allentown where he continues creating new works.

Rudin recently received praise from The Washington Post for his "Concerto for Piano and Small Orchestra," performed by pianist Marcantonio Barone and the "Great Noise Ensemble" May 18 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

He is also known for having written the opera "Three Sisters" for a William Ashbrook libretto based on Anton Pavlovich Chekov's play, and orchestral and chamber music for various traditional instruments. He has worked with numerous dance groups and choreographers, including Dance Theatre Workshop, Jeff Duncan, Murray Louis, The Pennsylvania Ballet, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Louis Falco, and Alwin Nikolais. His music was also featured in the soundtrack to Federico Fellini's "Satyricon."

Rudin served on the faculty of The Philadelphia Musical Academy for 37 years, which eventually became part of The University of the Arts. He also taught in the graduate division of The Juilliard School in New York City from 1981-84.

Since his retirement in 200l, he has worked as a broadcaster for WWFM, The Classical Network, from Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, and has served on the board of directors for Philadelphia's Orchestra 2001.

Rudin said that when he looks back on his life, all of the pieces fit together because he always followed his bliss.

"I've come full circle, living in a small town," he said, adding that Allentown is a friendly community like his childhood home of Newgulf, Texas, where neighbors knew and helped each other.

Rudin always had a passion for music. As a child, he wanted to learn how to play the piano and started doing so at the age of 7 without his parents' permission. He had to tell his folks when his teacher handed him the first bill for the lessons. Rudin considers himself lucky for having parents that went out and purchased a piano and supported his talent ever since.

The composer took interest in classical music as soon as he heard it on the radio and also considers himself lucky that Lila Crow, the only piano teacher in his small hometown, was classically trained and introduced him to Mozart, Bach, and Chopin. She also took him into Houston when the Metropolitan Opera came to town.

"I remember vividly, the production of 'Faust,'" he said, adding that as a kid he followed opera productions in the papers like other kids followed baseball.

After learning to play the trumpet and the cello, his grade-school teachers allowed him to experiment writing music. Rudin began composing at the age of 14 and had written his first musical comedy with orchestral accompaniment by the end of junior high school. He would later attend the All-State Orchestra as a cellist, enter its composition contest and win second prize.

"When I heard the opening notes of my 'Home State Suite,' I realized that it sounded precisely as I'd imagined it," he said. "At that moment, I knew I was a composer."

In fall 1957, Rudin entered the music department of The University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with Kent Kennan and Clifton Williams. There he would hear Robert Craft's recording of "The Complete Music of Anton Webern" and Igor Stravinsky's 12-tone technique, which altered his sense of direction as a composer. This new direction met with opposition from his composition teachers, who were trained in the Hanson-era Eastman School of Music.

Finding Texas unsympathetic to his musical inclinations and George Rochberg, who was soon to head the music department at The University of Pennsylvania, welcoming him with open arms, Rudin took a tuition-free scholarship to the university, where he would study with Rochberg, Ralph Shapey, Hugo Weisgall and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

During the 1960s, a friend took Rudin to the Alwin Nikolais Dance Company, which was known for designing movement, lighting, costumes, props and scores through musique concrete techniques, where he saw a Moog synthesizer. Rudin urged Moog to bring one of his synthesizers to the university and within a year Moog built one of his first large-scale studios in the basement of the Annenberg School of Communications.

Rudin made one of the first important synthesized compositions in the studio. "Il Giuoco" was presented with a visual component in The Philadelphia Composers Forum and was enthusiastically received by the audience, Daniel Webster of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the American Chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music as a United States entrant in the "5éme Biennale de la Cité de Paris." Moog's personal enthusiasm for the piece led to the Nonesuch Records commission.

"It was my first really mature piece that sounded like me and no one else," Rudin said of "Il Giuoco."

Rudin's inspiration to create any work usually forms externally, with a fellow musician or performer asking him to collaborate or someone commissioning him for a piece. However, the writing process is largely internal. For instance, "Viola Concerto," which Brett Deubner will play May 22, 2009, in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, evolved after the death of Rudin's mentor Rochberg.

Rudin attended Rochberg's funeral in Valley Forge and upon returning discovered letters from his departed friend. Enter the viola — a mournful sounding instrument to convey Rudin's grief.

The final piece quotes Rochberg's work and takes on Deubner's personality, as Rudin tries to mold his music into a form performers can easily slip into.

A recent work titled "September Trilogy" evolved in a completely different way, both as a conscious and subconscious effort.

His partner, Tom Queenan, encouraged Rudin to make a 2007 New Year's resolution with him to create something every day. Rudin was a little apprehensive about the idea at first, but found himself dedicating one to two hours each day to creating "maggots," which is an Elizabethan era term for something off the cuff that's essentially throwaway.

By the end of 2007, Rudin had 320 maggots, of which seven combined to form "September Trilogy."

Although he didn't consciously know it at the time he was creating them, nor would he say the work is necessarily about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the piece's movements, "Premonition," "Parade" and "Prayer," can be abstractly considered together as Rudin's response to 9/11, he said.

Rudin described "Premonition" as ominous with interludes of tranquility and climaxing into "something utterly cataclysmic." "Parade" sounds like a "hedonistic invasion of Iraq" with elements of bitterness and grotesque humor. And, "Prayer" begs the question, "What responsibility do I and everyone else hold for letting this develop?" Rudin said.

"Let people draw from it what they will," the composer said, adding that music holds just as many symbols as poems and plays. "But if you're looking beyond the music itself, you're already not getting it."

Rudin's payoff as a composer has never been the performance or review of the music he creates, but the process of creating.

"When I hear the ideal, nothing else is that thrilling," he said.

The power of music has always captivated Rudin. When he worked as a radio DJ at WWFM, he once received a phone call from a listener who said she had to pull her car off the road just to listen in.

"I've always responded to music that way myself," Rudin said.

Rudin has never been so productive and writes music every day. He continues to inspire and be inspired by experimental musicians like Bobby Prevatt, who can cohesively segue from jazz to heavy metal to organ music.

"I want to go anywhere where the music is," he said, adding that he wishes more young musicians would create volte-face to the business market and make music that transcends trends.

Music should always be staggering and revealing of new subtleties and nuances over time, according to Rudin.

Violinist Diane Monroe will perform Rudin's "Canapés at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 28 in Andrea Clearfield's Salon, Philadelphia. The cost is a $10 donation.

The University of the Arts' new recital hall will host Monroe, violist Brett Deubner and pianist Marcantonio Barone presenting Rudin's "Sonatas" at 8 p.m. Feb. 28, 2009. Admission is free.

For more performance and ticket information and to learn more about Rudin, visit www.composerrudin.com.