Harold Meltzer, composer of impossible-to-pigeonhole works, dies at 58
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, November 2, 2024


Harold Meltzer, composer of impossible-to-pigeonhole works, dies at 58
A photo provided by Metalli Studio, via the Civitella Ranieri Foundation shows the composer Harold Meltzer in Umbria, Italy, 2013. Meltzer, a composer who set aside a career as a lawyer to create a highly regarded body of energetic, colorful chamber, vocal and orchestral scores that mixed accessibly melodic themes and rich ensemble textures with the sharp-edged angularity of modernism, died on Aug. 12, 2024, in Manhattan. He was 58. (Metalli Studio, via the Civitella Ranieri Foundation via The New York Times)

by Allan Kozinn



NEW YORK, NY.- Harold Meltzer, a composer who set aside a career as a lawyer to create a highly regarded body of energetic, colorful chamber, vocal and orchestral scores that mixed accessibly melodic themes and rich ensemble textures with the sharp-edged angularity of modernism, died Aug. 12 in Manhattan. He was 58.

Hilary Meltzer, his wife, said that his death, in a hospital, was caused by respiratory failure, a complication of a variety of medical problems he had withstood since having a stroke in 2019.

Harold Meltzer, who was also a director (first with David Amato, later with Sara Laimon) of Sequitur, a new-music ensemble, cut an imposing figure at contemporary music concerts in the 1990s and 2000s.

Bespectacled, with wavy hair, he invariably entertained friends during intermissions with wry observations about the music world in general, or the events of the day. Even after his stroke, when he began using a wheelchair, he was determined to maintain something approximating his earlier level of activity, and after only two months of therapy, he appeared as the narrator for his theater work “Sindbad,” a humorous 2005 setting of a Donald Barthelme story that was one of his most frequently performed works.

His music was impossible to pigeonhole, mainly because each work was his response to a different set of challenges. In “Virginal” (2002), for harpsichord and 15 other instruments, he wanted to pay tribute to William Byrd, John Bull and other Elizabethan composers whose works were included in the “Fitzwilliam Virginal Book,” a collection of English Renaissance keyboard pieces. To avoid creating a pastiche, he did not quote from any of their music, focusing instead on the structures and processes (repeating figuration, for example) that made their music distinct.

When the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra gave the premiere of Meltzer’s “Vision Machine” at Carnegie Hall in 2016, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote in The New York Times that the work “deftly captures the interaction of the architecture and its environment, with puffy woodwind chords evoking cloud-chased skies, and delicate arpeggios, traded back and forth between the violins and the harp, mimicking light bouncing off a faceted surface.”

If there was one element that connected many of Meltzer’s works, it was an imaginative use of tone color. “Brion” (2007-08), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009, is a lively conversation between pairs of blown, plucked and bowed instruments. “Guangzhou Circle” (2015-16) juxtaposes traditional Chinese instruments (dizi, erhu, pipa and sheng) and a Western percussion quartet. His final completed work, a setting of Aracelis Girmay’s poem “You Are Who I Love” (2024), was composed for the Crossing, a Philadelphia-based choir, and Sandbox Percussion, and is rich in interplay between the two ensembles.

He was also fond of the kind of musical pictorialism that drives “Vision Machine.” His 2016 Piano Quartet captures a succession of emotional states, notated in his score markings, among them “ardent,” “contented,” “effervescent” and “ecstatic.” His chamber setting of Wallace Stevens’ “Variations on a Summer Day” (2016) evokes the shifting moods of the text, but also illustrates it — for example, by mimicking the calls of sea gulls when the poem mentions them.

Harold Meltzer was born in Brooklyn on June 8, 1966, to Stanley Meltzer, a lawyer, and Teddi (Trachter) Meltzer, an English teacher, and grew up in Hicksville, on Long Island.

As a teenager, he studied the piano and the bassoon, and took composition and music theory lessons from Morton Estrin. At Amherst College in Massachusetts, he studied composition with Lewis Spratlan, bassoon with Frank Morelli and piano with Robert Miller. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Amherst, graduating summa cum laude in 1988, and then traveled to England, where he earned a master of philosophy degree in music at King’s College Cambridge in 1991.

But Meltzer, realizing the difficulty of making a career as a composer, enrolled at Columbia Law School, where he completed his degree in 1992, while also studying composition privately with Tobias Picker. Upon graduation, he joined the law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler. But after two years, he reconsidered his decision to abandon music, and enrolled at the Yale School of Music. He completed his master’s in 1997 and his doctorate in 2000 at Yale, where he studied composition with Martin Bresnick, Jacob Druckman and Anthony Davis while also working part time at his father’s law firm, Meltzer, Fishman, Madigan & Campbell. He later studied privately with composer Charles Wuorinen and pianist Ursula Oppens.

Shortly after he returned to his musical studies, a friend from Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler who had moved to the environmental law division of the New York City Law Department arranged a blind date for Meltzer with Hilary Brest, another lawyer who worked there, who was also an avid cellist. They married in 1996 and had two children: Julia Meltzer, who works for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Elijah Meltzer, a student at Stanford University. His wife and children survive him, as does his mother and his sister, Rachel Meltzer. He lived in Manhattan.

“I continued trekking off to new-music concerts,” Meltzer told the Times about his time balancing music and the law. “But I couldn’t get anyone to go with me. When I did drag people along, they couldn’t stand it. These were people who were into avant-garde theater and contemporary art, but when I played them new music, they were lost. So I began to think about forming an ensemble and decided that if I did, I would identify the audience that didn’t come to concerts and get them to come.”

The ensemble he formed was Sequitur, a free-spirited group that explored competing and sometimes clashing streams of contemporary music, often with a focus on vocal works, because Meltzer believed that sung texts would appeal to listeners who might otherwise avoid new music. The group made its debut at Merkin Concert Hall in February 1997. He remained the group’s co-director until 2012.

Although Sequitur performed some of Meltzer’s music, most of his compositions were commissioned by other ensembles and institutions, including the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Boston Chamber Music Society, Meet the Composer, Maverick Concerts, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Brooklyn Art Song Society and the Library of Congress.

Meltzer also taught music at Yale, Vassar College, Amherst and the Peabody Institute. Among his awards were a Charles Ives Fellowship and an Arts and Letters Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters; the Samuel Barber Rome Prize Fellowship; the Barlow Prize from Brigham Young University; and the Leonard Bernstein Prize from ASCAP.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

August 21, 2024

REWIND: A CAREER REFLECTION

The British Museum is trying to recover gems, and its reputation

Italy's premier shotgun brands dominate Montrose's Aug. 31 Sporting, Classic & Collectible Firearms Auction

Michael Schreffler appointed director of new Notre Dame Arts Initiative

Scientists seeking life on Mars heard a signal that hinted at the future

By day, Sun Studio draws tourists. At night, musicians lay down tracks.

Art and Process exhibition opens October 24 at the Walters

David Kordansky Gallery to open a solo exhibition of new paintings by Hilary Pecis

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. announces a solo exhibition of recent work by Erin Shirreff

The Portland Art Museum presents psychedelic rock posters and fashion of the 1960s

Exhibition featuring the innovative work of Eritrea-born Canadian artist Dawit L. Petros will open in Chicago

Galerie Nathalie Obadia announces Nú Barreto's fifth solo exhibition with the gallery

Kate MacGarry announces an exhibition of Rana Begum's new Louvre series

Royal College of Art and The Virgil Abloh Foundation announce the RCA Virgil Abloh Scholarship 2024

The Third Line announces its first solo exhibition with Louisville-based artist Vian Sora

At the Ruhrtriennale, searching for the sublime among the ruins

Harold Meltzer, composer of impossible-to-pigeonhole works, dies at 58

He wants people restarting their lives to see themselves onstage

1876-CC Twenty Cent piece and George V Gold Sovereign lead Heritage's ANA Coin Auctions beyond $53 million

MCA Australia presents a multi-screen cinematic installation by Isaac Julien

Charles R. Cross, Biographer of Cobain and Hendrix, dies at 67

5 breakouts from classical music's most prestigious festival

Peter Marshall, longtime host of 'The Hollywood Squares,' dies at 98

Weiting Gao: AI is Liberating the Productivity of Designers and Artists

The Importance of Professional Planning Consultancy in Project Success

Streamlining Employee Compensation: Strategies for Efficient Business Operations

Exploring 1win Casino's Multilingual Support for Indian Players

Office Partitions: Enhancing Aesthetic Appeal and Functionality

The Rising Trend Of Hair Styling With Colour Blocking Among Teens

What Is No Digging Drain Repair?

Why Every City Should Have Medical Imaging Centres?

How To Find A Good Sunshine Coast Web Design Specialists For A Startup?

Decoding Your Skin's Signals - When To See A Skin Doctors

Why Are Electric Water Heater Best For Granny Flats?

How Can Time Management Courses Enhance Your Company's Profits?




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful