Charles Ives

Charles Ives
Portrait of Ives by Clara Sipprell, c. 1947
Born	(1874-10-20)October 20, 1874 Danbury, Connecticut, US
Died	May 19, 1954(1954-05-19) (aged 79) New York City, US
Occupation(s)	Actuary, businessman, composer
Spouse	Harmony Twichell ​ (m. 1908)​

Charles Edward Ives (/aɪvz/; October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American actuary, businessman, and modernist composer.^[1] Ives was amongst the earliest American internationally renowned composers to achieve recognition on a global scale.^[2] His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized through the efforts of contemporaries like Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, and he came to be regarded as an "American original".^[3][4][5] He was also among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones.^[6] His experimentation foreshadowed many musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century. Hence, he is often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century.^[7]

Sources of Ives's tonal imagery included hymn tunes and traditional songs; he also incorporated melodies of the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster.