Del Tredici, David

Del Tredici, David

(dĕl trədē`chē), 1937–, American composer, b. Cloverdale, Calif. Originally a pianist, he made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony at 16, and studied composition with Darius MilhaudMilhaud, Darius
, 1892–1974, French composer. Milhaud studied at the Paris Conservatory. In Brazil (1917–19) as an aide to Paul Claudel, poet and French minister to Brazil, he became acquainted with Brazilian folk music.
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 (1958). He taught at Harvard (1966–72) and Boston Univ. (1973–84) before joining the faculty of the City Univ. of New York in 1984. Del Tredici has composed for orchestra (sometimes including "folk" instruments), chamber groups, piano, and accompanied voice. His early works, e.g., I Hear an Army (1964) and Syzygy (1966), are in an atonal modernist idiom and largely inspired by the verbal pyrotechnics of James JoyceJoyce, James,
1882–1941, Irish novelist. Perhaps the most influential and significant novelist of the 20th cent., Joyce was a master of the English language, exploiting all of its resources.
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. For some two decades Del Tredici manifested an obsession with Lewis CarrollCarroll, Lewis,
pseud. of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,
1832–98, English writer, mathematician, and amateur photographer, b. near Daresbury, Cheshire (now in Halton).
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's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, composing many pieces inspired by them. Usually melodic and popular with audiences, these works include An Alice Symphony (1969, rev. 1976), Final Alice (1976), In Memory of a Summer Day (1980; Pulitzer Prize), and Haddock's Eyes (1986). Since the mid-1980s many of the openly gay composer's songs and song cycles, e.g., Gay Life (2001) and Wondrous the Merge (2003), have incorporated poems that celebrate homosexual love; his style has become lusher and more romantic.

Del Tredici, David (Walter)

(1937– ) composer; born in Cloverdale, Calif. After studies at Princeton he taught at Harvard and Boston University. He is best known for his series of neo-Romantic orchestral works based on Alice in Wonderland.