Music listeners typically orient themselves historically, asking: what tradition of composition is this music a result of? As to my own electronic and acoustic music, the answer I would give is: my music can be understood as an outflow of teachings of the Darmstadt School as well as the Frankfurt School.
Both schools are still in existence today, but their flowering falls into the period from 1950 to 1970, approximately. Both schools are German but are seen today as being of international importance.
As a composer, I owe to the Darmstadt School the notion that at the half-century mark (1950) a new period of musical history begins. Composers consciously leave behind the inflections of tonal music. The Darmstadt School was focused on finding new sounds, new technologies of composition, and new purposes of making music. Its central notions are: no piece should be reminding you of any other you have ever heard or composed” as well as: “every piece should be based on its own unique material.”
As a theorist of composition, I owe to the Frankfurt School, especially Adorno, the notion that musical materials are a medium in which to articulate one’s own awareness of the society one lives in, using the most advanced technologies available. One’s awareness is heightened by the ability to think dialectically, — in opposites that give shape to the parameters of musical sound (pitch, instrumental color, tone height, tone volume, etc.) and form (flow, density, intrinsic relationship of sections and movements).
While these general tenets may sound ideological, they have influenced my generation, and my ways of using the craft and tools of musical composition. Composed between 1965 and 2010, my music never left the path I learned to walk in Darmstadt and Frankfurt.