Arnold Dreyblatt

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Arnold Dreyblatt (b. New York City, 1953) is an American composer and visual artist. He studied music with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, Alvin Lucier and media art with Steina and Woody Vasulka. He has been based in Berlin, Germany since 1984. In 2007, he was elected to the German Academy of Art (Akademie der Künste, Berlin).

In his installations, performances and media works, Dreyblatt creates complex textual and spatial metaphors for memory which function as a media discourse on recollection and the archive. His installations, public artworks and performances have been exhibited and staged extensively in Europe. "Dreyblatt's project, maintains its edge--and its importance for the rethinking of identity, history, culture, and memory--by refusing to retreat from or transcend... ...public, archival traces." - Jeffrey Wallen, Hampshire College.

Among the second generation of New York minimal composers, Arnold Dreyblatt has developed a unique approach to composition and music performance. He has invented a set of new and original instruments, performance techniques, and a system of tuning. His compositions are based on harmonics, and thus just intonation, played either through a bowing technique he developed for his modified bass, and other modified and conventional instruments which he specially tuned. He originally used only a steady pulse provided by the bowing motion on his bass (placing his music in the minimal category), but he eventually added many more instruments and more rhythmic variety.

Dreyblatt's mother, Lucille Wallenrod (1918-1998), was a painter.

[edit] Publications

"Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933, Eine Reise in den Text", Gerhard Wolf Janus Press, Berlin 1995 (German)
"From the Archives", Stadtgalerie Saarbücken / Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg 2003 (German and English)
"Inschriften/Inscriptions", Jewish Museum, Frankfurt 2005 (German and English)
"Innocent Questions", Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg 2006 (Norwegian and English)

Discography

“Live at Federal Hall”, Table of the Elements, CD, 2006
“Lapse”, Table of the Elements, LP, 2004
“The Adding Machine”, Cantaloupe Music, CD, 2002
“Escalator” on “Renegade Heaven”, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Cantaloupe Music, CD, 2000
“The Sound of One String – Previously Unreleased Live Recordings 1979-1992”, Table of the Elements, CD, 1998
“Nodal Excitation”, Dexter’s Cigar, Drag City, CD; 1998
“Animal Magnetism”, Tzadik Records, CD
“a haymisch groove”, Extraplatte, Vienna, CD, 1994
“Propellers in Love”, and “High Life” , Hat Art Records, CD, 1986
Nodal Excitation, India Navigation Records, LP, 1982