Clarence Barlow Clarence Barlow

Clarence Barlow (born 27 December 1945) , or Klarenz Barlow, is a composer of classical and electroacoustic works.

Clarence Barlow was born in 1945 of English, Portuguese and French colonial descent in Calcutta. In 1965 he obtained a science degree at Calcutta University as well as the Licentiate Diploma of Trinity College of Music London in piano. From 1966-68 he taught music theory at the Calcutta School of Music. From 1968-73 he studied electronic music and composition with Herbert Eimert, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Vinko Globokar and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Music University (Musikhochschule) of Cologne.

As early as 1971 he began to compose music with the help of computers and worked thereafter in computer music studios in Stockholm (EMS), Paris (IRCAM), Amsterdam (STEIM), Warsaw (Chopin Academy) und Chicago (Northwestern University). In 1980 he was awarded the Kranichstein Composition Prize at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, in 1981 the Composition Prize of Cologne. From 1982-94 he regularly taught computer-aided composition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music and since 1984 at the Music University of Cologne. In addition he has lectured and his music has been performed in Canada, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand as well as in the following European countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Greece. Among the ensembles who have performed his music may be mentioned orchestras based in Baden-Baden (South-West Radio Orchestra), Frankfurt (Hessian Radio Orchestra) and Reykjavik (Iceland Symphony Orchestra) as well as ensembles from Frankfurt (Ensemble Modern), Cologne (Ensemble Köln), Berlin (Kammerensemble Neue Musik), Paris (Ensemble Itineraire), Amsterdam (Ives Ensemble), London (Apartment House), Montreal (Core) and others such as the Arditti and Kronos Ensembles.

In 1982 he initiated a computer music society in Cologne, which he co-founded in 1986 as GIMIK: Initiative Musik und Informatik Köln and chaired from 1986-93 and 1996-2002, since when he holds the title of member of honour of that society. In 1988 he was music director of the XIVth International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), organized by GIMIK in Cologne. From 1990-91 he was Guest Professor for Composition and Radio Play at the Folkwang University Essen. From 1990-94 he was Artistic Director of the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, where he has since been Professor of Composition and Sonology. From 1991-92 he was a founding member of the Leonardo Project in Cologne’s MediaPark Centre. Since 1994 he has been a permanent member of the International Academy of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges (France). In 1994 he initiated and directed the Lingua Armata Project in the Spektakel-Festival of the Science Ministry of the German federal state of North-Rhine-Westphalia held in Dortmund as well as the Amaludus Project of the same ministry at the Spektakel-Festival of 1996 in Münster. In 1995 he initiated and directed (with GIMIK) the four-city Trapezium Festival in Amsterdam, Essen, Cologne and The Hague involving 24 composers, six from each city. At the Royal Conservatory The Hague he initiated and organized in 1991 the Roboard Pfestival (including a two-hour and a three-hour concert of player-piano music) and the RATIO project (1992-93) involving structured music from mediaeval and contemporary Europe as well as North India, the Middle and Far East.

He currently (2018) lives in California where he teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Barlow is a universally acknowledged pioneer and celebrated composer in the field of electroacoustic and computer music. He has made groundbreaking advancements in interdisciplinary composition that unite mathematics, computer science, visual arts, and literature. While he has been a driving force in interdisciplinary and technological advances, his music is nevertheless firmly grounded in tradition and thus incorporates much inherited from the past. His works, primarily for traditional instruments, feature a vocabulary that ranges from pretonal to tonal, nontonal, or microtonal idioms, and, further, may incorporate elements derived from non-western cultures. Between 1961 and 2016 Barlow has produced over 100 works of various types, 3 orchestral (2 piano concertos and a work for large orchestra); ~40 chamber works for various groups of traditional instruments, including 2 string quartets; ~30 piano pieces (including works for two pianos); 3 organ works; 2 choral pieces; 3 vocal works with accompaniment; and ~20 electroacoustic works, a few of which fall into the category of radio plays and music theater.

The works have been programmed on concerts far too numerous to list. Between 1976 and 2016, as many as 40 concerts in Europe and elsewhere have been devoted entirely to Barlow's music (Aachen, Barcelona, Bremen, Calcutta, Cologne, Dortmund, Frankfurt, The Hague, Hamburg, Helsinki, Karlsruhe, Kiel, Ljubljana, London, Munich, Münster, New York, Palma de Mallorca, Rotterdam, Santa Barbara, Stockholm, Trstěnice/Litomyšl, Wissembourg, Yokohama, Zurich). Several works have been recorded and released on CD.

In addition to his renown as a composer, Barlow has also attained high distinction as an interdisciplinary researcher, author, and software developer. His publications include numerous works, one of which is an extensive study on tonality and metricism, Bus Journey to Parametron (1980) and another on a variety of music-related subjects, On Musiquantics (2008, 2012). Additional publications are the software that Barlow has written as aids for composing and notating music. These include Autobusk, a modal and metric pitch and rhythm generator (2001), the notation programs ЖSC (1976) and Tupletizer (1998) and numerous audio generation programs.

Compositional style and techniques

Barlow prefers traditional instrumental timbres to electronically synthesized ones because "they sound so much more alive and exciting". Although for this reason most of his works have been written for traditional instruments, he has frequently used the computer to generate the structures of his works. His comprehensive theory of tonality and metrics was first tested in the piano work Çoǧluotobüsişletmesi (1975–79). Spectral analysis and instrumental resynthesis of human speech has also played an important role in his compositions.