Harry Partch

An important and influential American composer, Partch grew up in the frontier territory of southern Arizona. His parents encouraged his musical ability and he learned to play wind instruments, strings, and piano. He understood what music theater could be when he observed the Beijing Opera in San Francisco's Chinatown when he was 13; he began composing his own melodies a year later. In his teens Partch played the piano well enough to accompany silent films in Albuquerque. During his twenties he developed the foundations of his difficult ideas about intonation and what he called corporality and began to write his notable book, Genesis of a Music. In 1930, Partch burned everything he had composed up to that time. With the help of a financial grant, Partch was able in 1934 to study the history of intonation at the British Museum, but he returned to an America in the throes of the Great Depression and wandered as a hobo for eight years. He gained professional attention after completing "The Wayward," a series of instrumental ensembles. With a research fellowship in the mid-1940s at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he invented two chromelodeons and four pitched idiophones. He continued to invent during the rest of his career. His most famous works are "Oedipus" (1951), "The Bewitched" (1955), "Revelation in the Courthouse Park" (1960), "Water! Water!" (1961), and "Delusion of the Fury" (1966). In 1956, Partch met the percussionist and conductor Danlee Mitchell. They collaborated for the rest of his life. Partch spent his last years in Encinitas, near San Diego. After his death, his invented instruments were preserved at Montclair State University in New Jersey.