Harry Partch

Composer, theorist and creator of musical instruments, Harry Partch (1901-1974) was a leading figure in the development of an indigenously American contemporary music. A pioneer in his explorations of new instruments and tunings, Partch created multimedia theatre works that combine sight and sound in a synthesis. He is acknowledged as a major inspiration to postwar experimental composers as diverse as Gyorgy Ligeti, Lou Harrison, Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson, and his book Genesis of a Music, first published in 1949, is now considered a classic.

Harry Partch by Bob Gilmore tells the complete story of Partch's life and work. Drawing on interviews with many of Partch's associates and on the complete archives of the Harry Partch Estate, Bob Gilmore provides a full portrait of this creative artist. He describes Partch's complicated relationships with friends, patrons, the musical establishment, and the world at large. He traces Partch's upbringing in the remote desert towns of the Southwest, his encounter with formal music education in Los Angeles, and his revolutionary course as a composer that began with an interest in the musicality of speech patterns.

After immersing himself in hobo subculture during the Depression, Partch came to occupy a lonely and uncompromising position as a cultural outsider. Partch's compositions, writings, and life have much to reveal about American society and the creative impulses of the artistic avant-garde.