Conlon Nancarrow with cat, half length portrait, seated, facing left, Mexico City, (1977)

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Charles Amirkhanian Collection ➔ Conlon Nancarrow with cat, half length portrait, seated, facing left, Mexico City, (1977)

Still image

Identifier
IM.CA.PC.0051.001
Dates
1977 | created
Work Type
Photographic print
Image Class
Composer & Performer Portraits
Image Series
A Visit with Conlon Nancarrow in Mexico (1977)
Description
Composer Conlon Nancarrow, seated with a cat in his lap. Born in Texarkana, Arkansas in 1912, Nancarrow was active in his early years as a trumpeter, playing jazz and other types of popular music. He attended the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music from 1929-32, and later studied composition and counterpoint in Boston with Nicolas Slonimsky, Walter Piston, and Roger Sessions (1933-36). In 1937 Nancarrow enlisted in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. On his return to the United States in 1939 he became involved in the New York new music scene, contributing several reviews to Modern Music and associating with other composers such as Elliot Carter and Aaron Copland.

Nancarrow was a dedicated socialist, which made him politically unacceptable in the United States. This was brought plainly home when he applied for a passport and was denied. Angry at such treatment, he moved to Mexico City in the early 1940s, becoming a Mexican citizen in 1956. He died there in 1997.

Nancarrow is perhaps most famous for his radical compositions for the player piano, an instrument he turned to partly because of Mexico's extreme musical isolation. Another more compelling reason was his long-standing frustration at the inability of musicians to deal with even moderately difficult rhythms. He goes so far as to say that "As long as I've been writing music I've been dreaming of getting rid of the performers." With the advent of the phonograph, the player piano has been relegated to the status of an object of nostalgia. But not so for Nancarrow, who since the late 1940s has composed almost exclusively for the instrument.
Genres & Subjects
Portrait photographs--1970-1980
Men
Composers
Cats
Image Ownership
Carol Law
Photo Credits
Carol Law
Related place
Mexico City (Mexico) (was created at)
Related Entities
Law, Carol
Nancarrow, Conlon, 1912-1997