Lecture about Electronic Microtonal Music at the Theremin Center Electronic Studio of the Moscow Conservatory in March 2004

Abstract

Joseph Pehrson is a well-known
New York-based composer. He studied
at the Eastman School of Music
and the University of Michigan. He has been
active in promoting contemporary music
in New York, having been a co-director
of the “Composers’ Concordance” concert
organization from 1984 to 2011. Pehrson
has written music in various styles, including
neoclassical and avant-garde, microtonal
music. The latter includes electronic
compositions with and without solo
instruments, which he wrote
in the decade of the 2000s. He has delved very
deeply into microtonal theory and has written
compositions for various unusual
and non-standard microtonal scales,
such as the 21-note to the octave scale.
The following is a transcript of Joseph
Pehrson’s presentation at the Theremin
Center, which was the Moscow Conservatory’s
electronic studio in the 1990s and 2000s.