Arnold Dreyblatt

Arnold Dreyblatt has placed recordings of his compositions with such prominent experimental imprints as Hat Hut, Tzadik, and Table of the Elements. A native of New York, he first pursued studies in film and video at SUNY under Woody and Steina Vasulka before completing a master’s degree at the Institute for Media Studies. During the mid-1970s he took composition lessons with Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young, later continuing his training with Alvin Lucier and receiving a master’s in composition in 1982. By then he had already spent three years leading his own group, the Orchestra of Excited Strings. Relocating to Europe in 1984, Dreyblatt expanded his practice to include text- and image-based installations and performances alongside his ongoing compositional work. Among the grants and awards he has received are support from the Overbrook Foundation and the Philip Morris Art Prize. He has served as guest composer at Amsterdam’s STEIM, Berlin’s Künstlerhaus Bethanien, and additional institutions, and he has accepted commissions from Ars Electronica, the Podewil/US Arts Festival, and Berlin’s DAAD-Inventionen ’91 for the production “Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933.” In partnership with the University of Lüneburg’s Kulturinformatik Department he produced two separate yet thematically linked projects: “Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933” and “Memory Arena.” Into the late 1990s he continued to make his home in Berlin.