Biography
Groundbreaking electronic composer Richard Maxfield entered the world in Seattle on February 2, 1927. During childhood he took up piano before joining the Seattle All Youth Orchestra on clarinet and completing a symphony before finishing high school. Following Navy service he attended Stanford University for one year, then moved to the University of California in 1947 for studies with composer Roger Sessions. His 1951 graduation brought the Hertz Prize, after which he journeyed to Europe and formed connections with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen; on a later European visit he encountered Christian Wolff, John Cage, and David Tudor. He arrived in New York during 1958 to work with Cage at the New School, then took over Cage’s instructional role in 1959 and selected LaMonte Young as his assistant. Through lessons devoted exclusively to electronically generated music he earned recognition as America’s first dedicated instructor in the field.
That same year he finished his initial large-scale electronic composition, “Sine Music (A Swarm of Butterflies Encountered Over the Ocean).” Across the ensuing five years he produced more than two dozen additional pieces, most assembled through cut-and-paste techniques that combined randomly selected tape segments of pre-recorded and altered sounds with blank sections of varying lengths. He repeatedly inserted and removed passages, often generating what he termed inter-masters by running several tape reels at once to produce a fresh master recording. The equipment in his home studio comprised two tape recorders, multiple sine-square wave generators, microphones, a homemade mixer and turntable, various filters, switches, amplifiers, speakers, and a reverberation unit he called the “Dynamic Spacexpander.” He is thought to have been the first American to construct his own gear for electronic music and possibly the first composer outside European circles to create purely electronic works independent of musique concrète methods.
His profile within New York’s experimental art scene grew through participation in the Fluxus movement and appearances at numerous downtown venues, among them the loft concerts organized by LaMonte Young at Yoko Ono’s space in 1960 and 1961. He also worked as a recording engineer for Westminster Records and served as musical director for the James Waring Dance Company. In 1966 he departed New York for California, where he taught at San Francisco State College for two years. During this period he issued his most recognized recording, the 1967 Advance label album simply titled Electronic Music, which contained both tape-based constructions and ensemble works featuring David Tudor and additional collaborators. He moved to Los Angeles in 1968 and died by suicide the next year at age 42.
That same year he finished his initial large-scale electronic composition, “Sine Music (A Swarm of Butterflies Encountered Over the Ocean).” Across the ensuing five years he produced more than two dozen additional pieces, most assembled through cut-and-paste techniques that combined randomly selected tape segments of pre-recorded and altered sounds with blank sections of varying lengths. He repeatedly inserted and removed passages, often generating what he termed inter-masters by running several tape reels at once to produce a fresh master recording. The equipment in his home studio comprised two tape recorders, multiple sine-square wave generators, microphones, a homemade mixer and turntable, various filters, switches, amplifiers, speakers, and a reverberation unit he called the “Dynamic Spacexpander.” He is thought to have been the first American to construct his own gear for electronic music and possibly the first composer outside European circles to create purely electronic works independent of musique concrète methods.
His profile within New York’s experimental art scene grew through participation in the Fluxus movement and appearances at numerous downtown venues, among them the loft concerts organized by LaMonte Young at Yoko Ono’s space in 1960 and 1961. He also worked as a recording engineer for Westminster Records and served as musical director for the James Waring Dance Company. In 1966 he departed New York for California, where he taught at San Francisco State College for two years. During this period he issued his most recognized recording, the 1967 Advance label album simply titled Electronic Music, which contained both tape-based constructions and ensemble works featuring David Tudor and additional collaborators. He moved to Los Angeles in 1968 and died by suicide the next year at age 42.
Albums
