J.K. Randall

James K. Randall (June 16, 1929 - Cleveland, Ohio ; May 28, 2014 - Princeton, New Jersey) was an American composer, music theorist, and early adopter of electronic music. At the time of his death he was Professor of Music Emeritus at Princeton University. James Kirtland Randall was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Margaret ("Miggie") Wright Randall and Edwin Templeton Randall. Miggie Randall was a violin teacher at the Cleveland Institute of Music and brought young James up as a music prodigy, with the ambition that he would become a famous piano player. When James was 17, a piano sonata that he composed was played at Carnegie Hall by his teacher, Leonard Shure. James went on to get a BA at Columbia University, an MA at Harvard University and an MFA at Princeton (studying with Milton Babbitt.) He also taught for four years at the US Navy School of Music while on active duty. He joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1957. At Princeton, he became a pioneer in electronic music, working from the very early days of punch cards. Music from that time includes Lyric Variations for Violin and Computer, Quartets in Pairs, and Quartersines. Later, he did a great deal of free-wheeling improvisation, then late in life came back to composing for piano (the GAP series) and MIDI (a garland of Midi, My Prayer for Bella). Though Randall's music was mostly heard within the small world of academic music, it occasionally reached a wider audience, for instance on the radio show "Schickele Mix" Archived 2009-12-08 at the Wayback Machine: He also wrote about music, published at first in Perspectives of New Music. Many of his writings took the form of highly experimental prose poems. A typical footnote from Compose Yourself -- A Manual for the Young (1972) reads: 1.) (pfung! ; !pfung( The publication of Compose Yourself caused a major financial backer to remove his support from Perspectives of New Music. While J.K. Randall's early works were set in conventional type, in his later writings he often used his own calligraphy. Randall's writings are collected in the 2-volume set Being About Music (with Benjamin Boretz). Much of J.K. Randall's work is published by Open Space and a large collection of his manuscripts and papers is held in the J. K. Randall Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. J.K. Randall was married to Ruth Hochheimer Randall for 62 years. They had 3 children together; Ellen, Thomas, and Beth. Piano Sonata, 1944 Suite for Piano, 1946 Theme and Variations, 1947 Variations for Cello and Piano, 1949 Rodeo for Solo Violin, 1953 Woodwind Quintet in Three Movements, 1953 Dance for Woodwind Quintet, 1953 Quartet, 1953 Music for Brass Sextet, 1953 Old Song, 1954 String Trio, 1954 To You, 1954 Choral Pieces, 1955 Five Monologues for Cello, 1955 Violin Sonata, 1955 Violin and Viola, 1955 Slow Movement, 1959 Improvisation on a poem by e. e. cummings, 1961, rev. 1974 Pitch-derived Rhythm, 7 Demonstrations, 1961 For Soprano, Contralto, and Piano, 1961 Quartets in Pairs, 1964 Connect, 1965 Mudgett: Monologues by a Mass Murderer, 1965 Academic Fugue, 1966 Lyric Variations for Violin and Computer, 1968 Quartersines, 1967 Square 1 & 2, 1968 Tonvib, 1968 Trev, 1968 AA, 1969 Eakins, music for the film, 1971 Horsehigh, 1971 Bessel 3, 1973 such words as it were vain to close ..., 1974 From my Diary: a Meditation on Rossignol, 1977 Troubadour Project, 1977 Greek Nickel, 1979 INTER/PLAY [tapes of improvised performances], 1980 - 1990 Three for Piano, 1991 Gap 1, 1991 Gap 2, 1993 Gap 3, 1994 Gap 4, 1994 Gap 5 (in memoriam Leonard Shure), 1994 The Fish, 1995 Svejk, 1996 Nine Salon Pieces for Yamaha DX-100, 1996 Troubadour Songs, 1997 Intimacy -- a Polemic, 1998 Gap 6, 1999 BAB-0, 2001 A Garland of C-Sound, 2001 GAP 8, 2002 Shouldn't we Talk?, 2003 Intermezzo in MIDI, 2003 GAP 7, 2004 Contrapunctus XI.2, 2004 Boogiebop and Cartoon, 2004 Notebook A, 2004 A Benfest, 2004 Ars Antiqua, 2005 A Garland of MIDI, 2005 Through Lapland, 2009 Grow, 2010 My Prayer for Bella, 2012 The Way it Was, 2013 Haydn: String Quartet in D major, op. 76, no. 5, Music Review, 1960 Pitch-Time Correlations, written 1962 Godfrey Winham: Composition for Orchestra, Perspectives of New Music, 1963–64 Convertible Counterpoint in the Strict Style (1906) by Serge Ivanovitch Tanaiev JMT, 1964 Three Lectures to Scientists, Perspectives of New Music, 1967 Compose Yourself -- A Manual for the Young, Perspectives of New Music, 1971 - 1974 A Soundscroll, Perspectives of New Music, 1975 How Music Goes, Perspectives of New Music, 1976 ADVT. --> repeat after me, Perspectives of New Music, 1979–80 Are You Serious?, Perspectives of New Music, 1985 )something medieval), Lingua Press, 1988 Ten Thoughts about Lyric Variations, 1993 It's all Yours/ A Note on GAP 6, Open Space Magazine 3, 2001 On Facing Front, Open Space Magazine 5, 2003 What is it About ABOUT?, Open Space Magazine 5, 2003 Being About Music, 2 vols. Collected writings of J.K. Randall and Ben Boretz, 2003 Liner Notes to "Shouldn't we Talk?" Archived 2014-08-16 at the Wayback Machine, 2003 When the Birds Come Calling (A Public Meditation on Two Recent Compositions by Ben Boretz), Open Space Magazine 8/9, Special Supplement, 2006 - 07. To Astonish the Roses, Open Space, 2013. Saxon, Jamie (5 Jun 2014). "James Randall, Princeton music professor and pioneer in electronic music, dies". Princeton University. Rahn, John (2001) . "Aspects of Musical Explanation ", pp. 55–58 in Benjamin Boretz (ed.). Music Inside Out: Going Too Far in Musical Essays. Psychology Press Town Topics (4 June 2014). "Obituary:James K. Randall" Schickele, Peter: "Schickele Mix", episode #37, The Big Chill-Out. Berger, Arthur (2002). Reflections of an American Composer p. 46. University of California Press )something medieval), Lingua Press, 1988 Snyder, Matthew. J. K. Randall Collection 1944-2006. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Archives and Manuscripts. Selleck, John (March–April 1977) "An Insider's Guide to Computer Music Recordings", pp. 71–72. Creative Computing Mackey, Steven (18 June 2014). "Jim (J.K.) Randall (1929-2014)—Out of View of Anything Resembling the Mainstream". New Music Box Rahn, John (1992). "Another Lecture: Notes on Another Lecture and J. K. Randall", pp. 238 –248. Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 30, No. 1 (subscription required) Swift, Richard (1964). "The Demonstrations of J. K. Randall", pp. 77–86. Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 2, No. 2 (subscription required) Chippewa, Jef (2005). "Being About Music: Tracing the American Post-War Musical Consciousness" Gleason, Scott (2013). "Princeton Theory's Problematics" tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (2013). Review of J.K. Randall's To Astonish the Roses J. K. Randall Discography at Discogs Princeton University Memorial Blog J. K. Randall's YouTube Channel Composers and Computers: Episode 02: Composers in the Computer Center Interview with J. K. Randall (New York Public Library) JKR memorial on vimeo Milton Babbitt: Portrait of a Serial Composer (contains footage of J. K. Randall)