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THE CURIOUS CASE OF ANTHONY GNAZZO: A LOST AMERICAN EXPERIMENTALIST
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2020
Abstract
Archival evidence indicates that Anthony Gnazzo was a major figure within the Bay Area avant-garde music scene of the 1960s and 1970s who retired from composition by 1983 and has since been largely forgotten. Historical documents reveal, however, that a study of Gnazzo enables us to better understand the complex network of influences and artists working on experimental music in the Bay Area during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. This article outlines Gnazzo's career and work, from his earliest academic compositions to his late electronic pieces, and concludes with a consideration of the ethical and moral issues inherent in musicological research on living subjects, particularly in the case of a composer who consciously avoids discussion of his personal aesthetic or compositional output. Should one study music that appears to have been ‘abandoned’ by the artist?
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- RESEARCH ARTICLE
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020
References
1 Anthony Gnazzo interviewed by Charles Amirkhanian, Ode to Gravity, aired 25 January 1982.
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13 The American Society of University Composers, Newsletter 1/1 (1968), p. 2.
14 The American Society of University Composers, Newsletter 1/1, p. 1.
15 Anthony Gnazzo interviewed by Howard Hersh, Panel Discussion on the Firing of Two Co-directors of the Mills College Tape Music Center, aired 20 April 1969.
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