Gloria Coates, composer who defied conventions, dies at 89

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Wednesday, July 3, 2024


Gloria Coates, composer who defied conventions, dies at 89
The composer Gloria Coates in 1999. Coates, an adventurous composer who wrote symphonies — she was one of the few women to do so — as well as other works, pieces that were seldom performed in her home country, the United States, but found audiences in Europe, where she lived much of her professional life, died on Aug. 19, 2023, in Munich. She was 89. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

by Neil Genzlinger



NEW YORK, NY.- Gloria Coates, an adventurous composer who wrote symphonies — she was one of the few women to do so — as well as other works, pieces that were seldom performed in her home country, the United States, but found audiences in Europe, where she lived much of her professional life, died Aug. 19 in Munich. She was 89.

Her daughter, Alexandra Coates, said the cause was pancreatic cancer.

Gloria Coates composed 17 symphonies, along with numerous works for small ensembles and voice. In 1999, when she was working on her 11th symphony, composer and critic Kyle Gann wrote in The New York Times that “Ms. Coates’s symphonies are dark and sensuous, and distinguished by an imaginative use of orchestral glissandos (gradual rather than stepwise changes of pitch, like slow sirens), which culminate powerfully in drawn-out crescendos.”

The glissando continued to be her calling card, Gann said this week by email.

“Gloria owned the orchestral glissando the way van Gogh said he owed the sunflower,” he said. “The slow pitch slides that run across the surfaces of her symphonies and string quartets can be difficult for the performers to coordinate, which has probably made musicians less willing to present her music. But they make it absolutely distinctive and recognizable. And underneath those glissandos there is often a clear discipline of canons, palindromes and other simple musical structures.”

“The effect,” he added, “is often like a painting of a beautiful edifice on which rain has impressionistically smeared the surface.”

Coates first came to wide attention when her “Music on Open Strings” was performed by the Polish Chamber Orchestra at the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music in 1978. Her work has since received only occasional bursts of attention in the United States — as in 1989, when her “Music on Abstract Lines” was given its world premiere at the New Music America festival in New York City; and in 2002, when New World Records released the first recording of her works on an American label; and in 2019, when “Music on Open Strings” was performed at Zankel Hall in New York City by the American Composers Orchestra.

In 2021, Edition Peters announced that it would begin publishing her works.

Coates said her music “sometimes is melodic, but often derived from structures of microtones melted together.”

“It is a way of thinking of music not as separate tones on a scale, as we have for centuries,” she told The Wausau Daily Herald of Wisconsin, her hometown newspaper, in 2021, “but as sounds gliding through time and space which have their own laws and still have roots in the historical musical tradition.”

In 2005, the Crash Ensemble performed her Sixth String Quartet (1999) in Dublin.

“Bleak and ascetic, strange and disturbing as her music may be, it’s also got a purity that makes it peculiarly compelling,” The Irish Times wrote then. “It’s not music that’s ever likely to leave even a single listener indifferent.”

Gloria Ann Kannenberg was born Oct. 10, 1933, in Wausau. Her father, Roland, was a state senator, and her mother, Natalina (Corso) Kannenberg, worked in weapons manufacturing during World War II and was later a nurse’s assistant.




Gloria showed musical inclinations early.

“The children in the 5-year-old kindergarten have a rhythm band,” The Wausau Daily Herald reported in early 1939. “Thomas Evenson, Jack Luedtke and Gloria Kannenberg brought drums from home.”

By then she was also proficient on the toy piano. By 12 she was creating her own often unconventional music. In 1951, a composition of hers won an “excellent” rating in a national junior composers’ competition. But teachers and contest judges sometimes discouraged her more audacious departures from tradition.

She told The Irish Times in 2005 that a key moment in her development came when, as a teenager, she attended a Q-and-A with Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin, who would become a mentor. He told her that it was more important to follow her instincts than to follow predetermined rules.

After graduating from high school in Wausau, she studied music and drama for a time at Monticello College in Illinois. She later studied at other institutions, including the Cooper Union in New York and Louisiana State University, which she attended after marrying Francis Mitchell Coates Jr. in 1959 and settling for a time in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She earned a master’s degree in composition there.

She continued her studies in New York, but after her marriage ended in divorce in 1969, she, her daughter and their dachshund boarded a ship for Europe. Coates, who had studied voice as well as composition, settled in Munich and for a time pursued a career singing opera. But fate intervened.

“When I was 7,” Alexandra Coates said by email, “she was hit by another skiing student and was paralyzed in the upper back.”

Gloria Coates gave up singing and focused on painting, another interest, along with music. She told The Irish Times that in the early 1970s, amid the terrorist attacks at the Olympics in Munich and the violence of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Munich building where she was living was thought to be a possible terrorist target. She moved her music manuscripts out of the building but continued to live there. (Her daughter was living with her father in the United States.) She was, she said, sending a sort of subliminal message to herself.

“It was not until several months later that I realized that that music was so important, it was more important than my life,” she said.

From then on, music became her primary focus. For years Coates curated a series in Germany devoted to American contemporary music. Her own compositional output covered a wide range. Her daughter said that for a time Coates held a job giving tours of the Dachau concentration camp to members of the U.S. Army. Among the works those tours inspired was her “Voices of Women in Wartime,” a setting of writings by women under various circumstances during World War II.

In addition to her daughter, Coates is survived by a brother, Philip Kannenberg; a sister, Natalie Tackett; and a grandson.

If her work wasn’t often heard in the United States, critics and other writers admired her originality. Simon Cummings, who writes the contemporary music blog 5:4, said by email that Coates had set herself apart from other out-of-the-mainstream composers as “one who doesn’t merely surprise or amuse you when you encounter their music for the first time, but who completely knocks you off your feet, and moves you very deeply and powerfully, even if, at the time, you’re not really sure why you’re experiencing such a strong reaction.”

In 2014, Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed called Coates simply “our last maverick.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

September 7, 2023

Shows that give off pleasure, and a bit of body heat

Gagosian announces the representation of Carol Bove

Cross-cultural exchanges from Vietnam, Ethiopia, the Caribbean

Exhibition at The Met to examine how American artists responded to the tumult of the 1930s

Comprehensive exhibition of paintings by Chaïm Soutine at the K20

New exhibition explores the myth of El Dorado

Galerie pact opens an exhibition of works by Rose Barberat

Margaritaville aims to hang on after Jimmy Buffett's death

Important collection of Greek coins expected to realise over £4M at auction

McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College presents 'Gateway to Himalayan Art'

Leland Little to hold Signature Fall Auction

'Florid', the first solo exhibition of Gina Beavers opens at rodolphe janssen

George Kolbe sculpture highlights Moran's Traditional Collector Sale

First New York solo show by Austin Thomas in over five years opens at Morgan Lehman Gallery

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen features Second World War in exhibition 'Art Amid the Ruins'

Francis Alÿs presents a more comprehensive version of the exhibition 'The Nature of the Game'

For Brussels Gallery Weekend, Pei-Hsuan Wang opens exhibition at Ballon Rouge

'Alison Croney Moses: The Habits of Reframing', reframes her own identity as an artist at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery

Templon's New York space celebrates 1st anniversary paying tribute to American master painter and sculptor George Segal

Eiji Uematsu's first-ever New York exhibition opens at Alison Bradley Projects

'Ye Funa - The Big Dream Show' opens at Eli Klein Gallery

Getty Research Institute acquires Maren Hassinger archive

Thomas Erben Gallery exhibits work by Agata Kus and Zbigniew Libera

Gloria Coates, composer who defied conventions, dies at 89

Understanding Trading Investments: A Comprehensive Guide

How to get subscribers on YouTube?

How to get more YouTube views?

How to get more YouTube subscribers?

How to get YouTube views?

Acrylic Keychain: A World of Customization in Your Pocket

SEO Content Mastery: Navigating Through Tips, Tricks, Hacks, and Myths

Best Door Locks for Your Home: A Comprehensive Guide




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful