Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky (March 4, 1934 – August 23, 2019) was an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the United States, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He is best known for his series of compositions called "Synchronisms", which in live performance incorporate both acoustic instruments and electroacoustic sounds played from a tape.
Biography.
Davidovsky was born in Médanos, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina,
a town nearly 600 km southwest of the city of Buenos Aires and
close to the seaport of Bahía Blanca. At seven he began his musical studies on the violin. At thirteen he began composing. He studied composition and theory under Guillermo Graetzer at the University of Buenos Aires, from which he graduated.
In 1958, he studied with Aaron Copland and Milton Babbitt at the Berkshire Music Center (now the Tanglewood Music Center) in Lenox, Massachusetts. Through Babbitt, who worked at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and others, Davidovsky developed an interest in electroacoustic music. Copland encouraged Davidovsky to emigrate to the United States, and in 1960, Davidovsky settled in New York City, where
he was appointed associate director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
Most of his published compositions since the 1970s have been nonelectronic. His only published electroacoustic compositions since that time are "Synchronisms No. 9" (1988) and "Synchronisms No. 10" (1992). However, Davidovsky received a commission by a group led by SEAMUS to compose two more electroacoustic works in the "Synchronisms" series. No. 11 and No. 12 premiered in 2007 at the SEAMUS National Conference in Ames, IA.
Davidovsky's association with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center continued, and from 1981 to 1993 he was the lab's director as well as professor of music at Columbia. In 1994 he became professor of music at Harvard. During his career, Davidovsky has also taught at many other institutions: University of Michigan (1964), the Di Tella Institute of Buenos Aires (1965), the Manhattan School of Music (1968–69), Yale University (1969–70), and the City College of New York (1968–80).
He served on the composition faculty of Mannes College The New School for Music.
In 1982, Davidovsky was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Personal life.
Davidovsky married Ellen Blaustein in 1961. They had two children, and three grandchildren. He died in New York City on August 23, 2019 at the age of 85.
External links.
[[Category:1934 births]]
[[Category:2019 deaths]]
[[Category:American contemporary classical composers]]
[[Category:American classical composers]]
[[Category:Argentine classical composers]]
[[Category:American male classical composers]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for Music winners]]
[[Category:Argentine Jews]]
[[Category:Jewish Argentine musicians]]
[[Category:Jewish classical musicians]]
[[Category:Argentine people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Argentine emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:Manhattan School of Music faculty]]
[[Category:University of Michigan faculty]]
[[Category:Pupils of Aaron Copland]]
[[Category:Pupils of Milton Babbitt]]
[[Category:People from Buenos Aires Province]]
[[Category:20th-century Argentine artists]]
[[Category:21st-century American composers]]
[[Category:20th-century classical composers]]
[[Category:21st-century classical composers]]
[[Category:Mannes College The New School for Music faculty]]
[[Category:20th-century American composers]]