GORDON MUMMA – Composer and Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz

Gordon Mumma was born in 1935 in Framingham, Massachusetts. He studied horn and piano in Chicago and Detroit and was an active performer in orchestra and chamber music.

Mumma worked with the historic ONCE Festival (1961-66), involving composers Robert Ashley, George Cacioppo, Roger Reynolds, Donald Scavarda and others. Into the 1970s he toured with the Sonic Arts Union (Ashley, David Behrman, and Alvin Lucier), and with John Cage and David Tudor in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company,

Mumma has many published articles on the contemporary arts and technology. His music is recorded by Lovely Music, New World Records, Tzadik and others. A 2-CD set of his solo piano music, performed by Daan Vandewalle, is a co-production by New World Records and HR2-Kultur in Frankfurt. From 1975 to 1994 he was Professor of Music at the University of California. He is now working with the Canadian musicologist Michelle Fillion on 50 years of his writings for a book publication scheduled in 2015.