Event Title
Johnny Reinhard: A Multi-Faceted Microtonal Maven
Date of Publication
3-26-2021
Document Type
Paper
Abstract / Program Notes
During the last four decades, Johnny Reinhard has played many roles as he has championed alternatively tuned music in community spaces throughout New York City with his American Festival of Microtonal Music: microtonal theorist, composer, musicologist, bassoonist, festival promoter, teacher, fundraiser, raconteur, and more. With his looming retirement from professional engagements in Summer 2021 nearly here, now is an excellent time to look back on and celebrate the efforts and achievements of this quintessential American experimental musician. Reinhard’s most notable work showcases the impact of his multiple vantage points. For example, his performances of idiosyncratic, virtuosic bassoon techniques and investigation of his “8th Octave Overtone Tuning” theories within his compositions has drawn attention from recent generations of microtonalists and contemporary music-focused bassoonists, and inspired Georg Friedrich Haas to write the solo “For Johnny Reinhard.” His larger works, like the hour-long “Odysseus” his Microtonal Tonight Show with their flexible, improvisatory structures, exhibit a sweeping, deeply collaborative vision for using microtonality with his trademark puckish attitude. Reinhard’s work on Charles Ives’ “Universe Symphony” reflects a culmination of his various strengths. His research in the 1990s led him to a conviction that several of Ives’ works, including this unfinished symphony, employ extended pythagorean tuning. This led to him to complete a version of “Universe Symphony” that premiered at Alice Tully Hall in 1996, and additional performances and investigations into Ives in the years since. In examining these endeavors, we can better understand this fiercely independent musician’s multi-faceted creativity.
Biography
Ralph Lewis is a doctoral candidate in music composition at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who is passionate about exploring, supporting, and understanding new musical expression. Active as a composer, music theorist, and educator, his work is often centered on creating welcoming, inclusive spaces and engaging less discussed music and technology. In 2019, he received one of ten Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Research Grant awarded throughout the US to support his music theory dissertation research about Aaron Cassidy’s Second String Quartet at the University of Huddersfield. Lewis’s compositions have been performed at festivals and conferences including SCI National Student Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, SEAMUS, College Music Society, Radiophrenia Glasgow, Boston Microtonal Society, the International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR), and the Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival. Previously, he received an M.F.A. in Electronic Music and Recording Media and an M.A. in Music Composition from Mills College, a B.M. in Music Composition from Oberlin Conservatory, and a B.A. in Classical Civilization from Oberlin College.
Keywords
Johnny Reinhard, Multi-Faceted, Microtonal
Johnny Reinhard: A Multi-Faceted Microtonal Maven
During the last four decades, Johnny Reinhard has played many roles as he has championed alternatively tuned music in community spaces throughout New York City with his American Festival of Microtonal Music: microtonal theorist, composer, musicologist, bassoonist, festival promoter, teacher, fundraiser, raconteur, and more. With his looming retirement from professional engagements in Summer 2021 nearly here, now is an excellent time to look back on and celebrate the efforts and achievements of this quintessential American experimental musician. Reinhard’s most notable work showcases the impact of his multiple vantage points. For example, his performances of idiosyncratic, virtuosic bassoon techniques and investigation of his “8th Octave Overtone Tuning” theories within his compositions has drawn attention from recent generations of microtonalists and contemporary music-focused bassoonists, and inspired Georg Friedrich Haas to write the solo “For Johnny Reinhard.” His larger works, like the hour-long “Odysseus” his Microtonal Tonight Show with their flexible, improvisatory structures, exhibit a sweeping, deeply collaborative vision for using microtonality with his trademark puckish attitude. Reinhard’s work on Charles Ives’ “Universe Symphony” reflects a culmination of his various strengths. His research in the 1990s led him to a conviction that several of Ives’ works, including this unfinished symphony, employ extended pythagorean tuning. This led to him to complete a version of “Universe Symphony” that premiered at Alice Tully Hall in 1996, and additional performances and investigations into Ives in the years since. In examining these endeavors, we can better understand this fiercely independent musician’s multi-faceted creativity.