Ruth Anderson (composer)


Ruth Anderson was an American composer, orchestrator, teacher, and flutist.

Biography

Ruth Anderson was born March 21, 1928, in Kalispell, Montana. She was a composer of orchestral and electronic music. Her extensive education spanned two decades, and was spent at eight different institutions. Throughout this time, Anderson was the recipient of a multitude of awards and grants, including two Fulbright awards to study composition with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. After completing her education, Anderson spent time as a freelance composer, orchestrator, and choral arranger for NBC-TV, and later for Lincoln Center Theater.

Post-secondary education

She was a "respected electronic composer" whose works have been released on the Opus One label, Charles Amirkhanian's "pioneering" LP anthology New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, New World/CRI, Arch Records, and Experimental Intermedia. Further work was released on Arc Light in 2020.

Compositions

Anderson composed for a wealth of instruments and ensembles, including orchestra and electronic music.
Her sound poem I Come Out of Your Sleep is constructed from whispered phonemes extracted from Louise Bogan's poem "Little Lobelia." According to the composer "a very soft dynamic level is an integral component of this piece. It is important to listen to it in the way it was composed, near the threshold of hearing." Her collage piece SUM is included on the Lesbian American Composers collection. SUM and DUMP , also a sonic collage, are her best known pieces. She calls her study of Zen, begun in 1990, "a natural extension of my music," and cites as influential, especially on her interest in music and healing, composers Pauline Oliveros and Annea Lockwood.
Anderson received degrees in flute and composition at the University of Washington and later studied with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger in the 1950s and with Vladimir Ussachevsky and Pril Smiley in the 1960s at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. She wrote that after her exposure to tape manipulation she became open to the potential of, "all sounds...as material for music". She joined the staff at Hunter College in 1966 and created the Electronic Music Studio there, retiring in 1988.
Just before her death in November 2019, Anderson approved the test pressings for an LP of her work, entitled Here and released by Arc Light Editions in February 2020. Included are: ‘I Come Out Of Your Sleep’; ‘SUM’ ; 'Pregnant Dream' ; ‘Points’ ; and the electro-acoustic 'So What'.
Anderson composed dozens of pieces for a variety of groups; below are some selections of her works.
TitleComposition DateInstrumentation
Impression IV1950Soprano, flute, and string quartet
Sonata1951Flute and piano
Sonatina1951Flute and piano
Motet, Psalm XIII1952Mixed choir
Prelude and Allegro1952Woodwind quintet
Symphony for Small Orchestra1952Orchestra
Three Children's Songs1952Soprano and piano
Prelude and Rondo 1956Flute and strings
Song to My Father1959Women's voices and piano
Richard Cory1960Women's voices and piano
Wheel on the Chimney1965Slide film score and orchestra
The Pregnant Dream1968Tape
DUMP1970Tape
So What1971Tape
SUM 1973Tape
Conversations1974Tape
Points1974Tape
Sappho1975Tape
Tunable Hopscotch1975Installation/Game
I Come Out of Your Sleep1979, revised 1997Tape
Centering1979Interactive biofeedback: four "observers" with galvanic skin resistance oscillators, and dancer
Time and Tempo1984Biofeedback installation