Anthony Braxton | |
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![]() Braxton in 2007 | |
Background information | |
Born | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | June 4, 1945
Genres | experimental music, contemporary classical music, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, free improvisation |
Occupation(s) | Composer, musician, educator |
Instrument(s) | Saxophones, clarinets, flute, piano |
Years active | 1968–present |
Labels | Delmark, Arista, Hathut, Black Saint, Music & Arts, Antilles, Leo, CIMP |
Website | tricentricfoundation |
Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto.[1] Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, and was a key early member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.[2] He received great acclaim for his 1969 double-LP record For Alto, the first full-length album of solo saxophone music.[3][4]
A prolific composer with a vast body of cross-genre work, the MacArthur Fellow[5] and NEA Jazz Master has released hundreds of recordings and compositions.[6] During six years signed to Arista Records, the diversity of his output encompassed work with many members of the AACM, including duets with co-founder and first president Muhal Richard Abrams; collaborations with electronic musician Richard Teitelbaum; a saxophone quartet with Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett; compositions for four orchestras; and the ensemble arrangements of Creative Orchestra Music 1976, which was named the 1977 DownBeat Critics' Poll Album of the Year.[7] Many of his projects are ongoing, such as the Diamond Curtain Wall works, in which Braxton implements audio programming language SuperCollider;[8] the Ghost Trance Music series, inspired by his studies of the Native American Ghost Dance;[9] and Echo Echo Mirror House Music, in which musicians "play" iPods containing the bulk of Braxton's oeuvre.[10][11][12] He has released the first six operas in a series called the Trillium Opera Complex.[13]
Braxton identifies as a "trans-idiomatic" composer and has repeatedly opposed the idea of a rigid dichotomy between improvisation and composition.[14][15] He has written extensively about the "language music" system that forms the basis for his work[16] and developed a philosophy of "world creativity" in his Tri-Axium Writings.[17]
Braxton taught at Mills College from 1985 to 1990[5] and was Professor of Music at Wesleyan University from 1990 until his retirement at the end of 2013.[18] He is the artistic director of the Tri-Centric Foundation,[19] a nonprofit he founded in 1994 to support the preservation and production of works by Braxton and other artists "in pursuit of 'trans-idiomatic' creativity".[20]
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