Biography
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Born
10 October 1933
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Born In
Wausau, Marathon County, Wisconsin, United States
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Died
19 August 2023 (aged 89)
Gloria Coates (October 10, 1938 in Wausau, Wisconsin - August 19, 2023 in Munich, Germany) is an American composer formed in Chicago, Louisiana State University, New York's Cooper Union Art School and Columbia University. She has written 16 symphonies, 10 string quartets and numerous songs and chamber works which have been performed by leading orchestras and performers internationally. Her mentors were Alexander Tcherepnin and Otto Luening .
Since 1976 she has lived periodically in London, England and Munich, Germany; and from 1989 -1999 in New York. In Munich, Germany, she produced a music series of German-American Contemporary Music from 1971 - 1983 subsidized by the Ditson Fund of Columbia University and the Munich Ministry of Culture. She also produced programs on the Cologne Radio WDR in a series of American music for Radio 2.
Her best known work is 'Music on Open Strings' or 'Symphony No. 1' written in 1971 - 1972 and premiered at the Warsaw Autumn Festival 1978 to great acclaim throughout the press. In 1980 it was the first orchestral work by a woman composer in the 35 year history of the Munich Musica Viva founded by Karl Amadeus Hartman. 8 of her symphonies have been recorded on CPO or Naxos, or new World and 9 string quartets on Naxos.
Her music uses microtones and glissandi but can be lyrical as well. The intensity of concentration of her sound and musical gesture has been compared to Galina Ustwolskaja and Arvet Terterian by leading critics such as Dirk Wieschollek in the German 'Fono Forum' or Robert Carl in the American' Fanfare Magazine'.
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