Biography
Mario Davidovsky earned wide recognition as a composer whose primary focus lay in electronic music. In 1971 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Synchronism No. 6 for piano and tape.
His earliest musical studies began in Argentina at the age of seven. He later attended the Collegium Musicium and then the Bartolome Mitre School at the University of Buenos Aires, where he started composing at thirteen under the guidance of Guillermo Graetzer.
Davidovsky arrived in the United States in 1958 to work at the Berkshire Music Center with Aaron Copland, who viewed electronic music as inherently constrained by its dependence on electronic media. At Milton Babbitt’s urging, he settled permanently in New York City in 1960. Once established in the country, he held teaching positions at the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, City University, CUNY, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan. He also served as visiting professor at the Di Tella Institute in Argentina and, in January 1994, joined the music faculty at Harvard University.
Beyond classroom duties, Davidovsky directed the Koussevitsky Foundation at the Library of Congress, led the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, and chaired the Electronic Music Center at Columbia University. He established the Robert Miller Fund for Music and acted as its vice president. Among his honors were two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Brandeis Creative University Creative Arts Award, a Koussevitsky Fellowship, the Williams Foundation Fellowship, and two Rockefeller Fellowships. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982 and received the Christopher and Stephan Kaske Foundation Music prize in 1997 for his role in advancing contemporary music.
Prestigious commissions came from Harvard’s Fromm Foundation, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Pan American Union, the Koussevitsky Foundation, Yale University, the Emerson String Quartet, the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the Naumburg Foundation, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Davidovsky became especially identified with the integration of live instrumental playing and pre-recorded electronic sound, a practice he pursued across a cycle of eight Synchronisms written for different instruments.
His earliest musical studies began in Argentina at the age of seven. He later attended the Collegium Musicium and then the Bartolome Mitre School at the University of Buenos Aires, where he started composing at thirteen under the guidance of Guillermo Graetzer.
Davidovsky arrived in the United States in 1958 to work at the Berkshire Music Center with Aaron Copland, who viewed electronic music as inherently constrained by its dependence on electronic media. At Milton Babbitt’s urging, he settled permanently in New York City in 1960. Once established in the country, he held teaching positions at the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, City University, CUNY, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan. He also served as visiting professor at the Di Tella Institute in Argentina and, in January 1994, joined the music faculty at Harvard University.
Beyond classroom duties, Davidovsky directed the Koussevitsky Foundation at the Library of Congress, led the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, and chaired the Electronic Music Center at Columbia University. He established the Robert Miller Fund for Music and acted as its vice president. Among his honors were two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Brandeis Creative University Creative Arts Award, a Koussevitsky Fellowship, the Williams Foundation Fellowship, and two Rockefeller Fellowships. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982 and received the Christopher and Stephan Kaske Foundation Music prize in 1997 for his role in advancing contemporary music.
Prestigious commissions came from Harvard’s Fromm Foundation, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Pan American Union, the Koussevitsky Foundation, Yale University, the Emerson String Quartet, the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the Naumburg Foundation, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Davidovsky became especially identified with the integration of live instrumental playing and pre-recorded electronic sound, a practice he pursued across a cycle of eight Synchronisms written for different instruments.