Interview with Alvin Lucier

by Sebastian Berweck

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Composer and performer, and John Spencer Camp Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. Interviewed at Wesleyan, 8 February 2010.

Biography

Alvin Lucier was born in 1931 in Nashua, New Hampshire. He was educated in Nashua public and parochial schools, the Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale, and Brandeis and spent two years in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. From 1962 to 1970 he taught at Brandeis University and 1966 he co-founded the Sonic Arts Union. Since 1970 he has taught at Wesleyan University, where he is currently John Spencer Camp Professor of Music. Lucier lectures and performs extensively in Asia, Europe and The United States. Reflections / Reflexionen, a bilingual edition of his scores, interviews and writings, is available from MusikTexte, Köln.

Alvin Lucier was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) and received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Plymouth, England. In November 2011 Wesleyan University will celebrate Alvin Lucier’s retirement with a three-day festival.