Dennis Johnson (composer)

Dennis Lee Johnson (November 19, 1938 – December 20, 2018)[1] was a mathematician and a composer. He is the namesake of the Johnson homomorphism in the study of mapping class groups of surfaces. He is credited as having composed the first truly "minimal" composition November,[2] which was written for solo piano in 1959 (later revised).

November is famous for being the inspiration for Johnson's UCLA college friend La Monte Young's 1964 composition, The Well-Tuned Piano.[3]

The work has been painstakingly reconstructed from a 1962 112-minute cassette tape recording, and six pages of the original score, by the composer and musicologist Kyle Gann,[4] who first performed a four-and-a-half-hour version in 2009 with Sarah Cahill. Gann has produced a new performance score based on the original material that R. Andrew Lee recorded in a five hour version released in 2013 by Irritable Hedgehog Music, receiving good reviews[5][6] and a renewed interest in this seminal work of minimalism. In 2017 the Dutch pianist and composer Jeroen van Veen released November as part of his eight-disc Minimal Piano Collection, Vol XXI–XXVIII.

Johnson gave up music around 1962 and moved into mathematics (working for a time at California Institute of Technology, the private research university in Pasadena)[3] leaving this one fascinating and influential work that features many of the elements that would later become the basic staples of 1960s and early 1970s Minimalism.

Death

Johnson died December 20, 2018, in Morgan Hill, California, from complications of dementia.[1] He was 80.

References
  1. Kozinn, Allan (January 9, 2019). "Dennis Johnson, 80, Creator of a Rediscovered Minimalist Score, Dies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 10, 2019. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
  2. Walls, Seth Colter (29 July 2015). "R. Andrew Lee ... as if to each other ." Pitchfork. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  3. Bell, Clive (March 2013). "Dennis Johnson: Maths, Mars landings and minimalism". The Wire. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  4. Gann, Kyle. "Reconstructing November". Irritable Hedgehog. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  5. Smith, Steve (10 March 2013). "R. Andrew Lee rewrites the history books with November". Time Out New York. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  6. "Music Review: November, by Dennis Johnson". kirkville.com. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
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