Paavo Heininen
Finnish composer Paavo Heininen dies. Finnish composer Paavo Heininen died on 18 January in Järvenpää at the age of 84. He was considered one of Finland‘s foremost contemporary composers. Heininen, born in Helsinki on 13 January 1938, was the last pupil of Aare Merikanto. Heininen received further training in Cologne…
Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier dies at the age of 90. Mary Lucier posted just over an hour ago on her Facebook account the death of her ex-husband, Alvin Lucier, at the age of ninety. A composer of experimental music and sound art, he focused on the study of acoustic phenomena and auditory…
Gordon Crosse
English composer Gordon Crosse passes away. The English composer Gordon Crosse (Bury, 1937-Suffolk, 2021) died on 21 November at the age of 83. The starting point of his work was, like that of many of his contemporaries, serialism and dodecaphonic music, particularly Webern, which he combined (like Maxwell Davies) with…
Mario Lavista
Mexican composer Mario Lavista dies. The Mexican composer Mario Lavista (Mexico D. F., 1943-Ciudad de México, 2021), one of the most outstanding contemporary Hispanic artists, has died at the age of 78. Although he began his studies at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico D. F., his work offered…
Udo Zimmermann
Udo Zimmermann dies at the age of 78. German composer and opera conductor Udo Zimmermann died on Friday night in his native Dresden at the age of 78. He had been suffering for years from a rare neurodegenerative disease that prevented him from composing. In 1974, Zimmermann founded the Studio…
Luis de Pablo
The Spanish composer Luis de Pablo dies. Yesterday, 10 October, the Spanish composer Luis de Pablo (Bilbao, 1930; Madrid, 2021) passed away and the news on La 1 news programme devoted a meagre twenty seconds to the story… If he had seen it, the composer would have been devastated, and…
Koichi Sugiyama
Koichi Sugiyama dies at the age of 90. Japanese composer Koichi Sugiyama (Nagoya, 1931-2021), known above all for being one of the most important composers of soundtracks for anime cartoons and video games, including the famous Dragon Quest saga, part of which was performed last July at the opening ceremony of…
Richard H. Kirk
Richard H. Kirk, of Cabaret Voltaire, dies. Richard Harold Kirk, founding member of the British electronic music band Cabaret Voltaire, died today at the age of 65, according to Mute Records, for whom he recorded some of his work, both in Cabaret Voltaire and as a solo artist. Kirk founded…
Mikis Theodorakis
Mikis Theodorakis dies at the age of 96. Mikis Theodorakis, the most famous of Greek contemporary composers, died today, Thursday, in Athens, aged 96. According to his website, he died at 8.35 a.m. of cardiorespiratory arrest. The author of an enormous body of work, he became famous above all for…
Siegfried Matthus
Siegfried Matthus, the author of “Judith”, dies. The German composer, conductor and festival conductor Siegfried Matthus died on Friday 27 August at the age of 87. Born in Mallenuppen, which today belongs to Russia and was then East Prussia in the Weimar Republic, after World War II his family remained…
Raymond M. Schafer
Raymond Murray Schafer died at 88. The Canadian composer, professor, music educator, ecologist and visual artist Raymond Murray Schafer, creator in 1970 of the term “soundscape” to refer to the recording of environmental sounds that allow us to appreciate the sonority of a place, died last Saturday at the age…
Peter Rehberg
Peter Rehberg is dead at 53. Anglo-Austrian musician Peter Rehberg passed away on 22 July, following a heart attack. A well-known figure in the fields of electronic and ambient music, he initially released his records under the alias Pita, as well as under his own name. He was one of…