Gene Tyranny


"Blue" Gene Tyranny is an avant-garde composer and pianist.

Biography

He was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1945, the adopted son of Dorothy and Meyer Sheff. He studied piano with Meta Hertwig and Rodney Hoare, and composition with Otto Wick and Frank Hughes. He taught at Mills College from 1971 to 1982 and also worked at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills. He moved to New York in 1983 and received a Bessie in 1988 and in 1989 a Composer Fellowship from the NY Foundation for the Arts.
Tyranny began his performance career in high school, playing pieces by major composers with Philip Krumm in a concert series in San Antonio. He has toured with the Carla Bley Band and The Prime Movers as well as Iggy & The Stooges. He has performed on albums by Laurie Anderson, David Behrman, John Cage, Peter Gordon, and Robert Ashley, with whom he frequently collaborated. Tyranny's albums include Out of the Blue, The Intermediary Country Boy Country Dog , Free Delivery, and Somewhere Songs/The Invention of Memory.
Tyranny was a contributor for Allmusic, reviewing albums and creating biographies for many notable contemporary artists.
According to Kyle Gann in the Village Voice, Tyranny has "Cecil Taylor's keyboard energy, Morton Feldman's ear. The most original aspect of works is the way they create continuity: they're tonal, yet rigorously asymmetrical. They satisfy the ear without letting it take anything for granted. They evolve...with the labyrinthine irreversibility of deep psychic forces."

Listening