W. A. Mathieu Explained

William Allaudin Mathieu (born 1937) is a composer, pianist, choir director, music teacher, and author. He began studying piano at the age of six, and began recording his music and compositions in the 1970s on his record label, Cold Mountain Music. Mathieu has composed and recorded solo piano works, chamber pieces, choral music, and song cycles, and he has written four books on music, music theory, and how to live a musical life.

Career

Mathieu studied jazz composition with William Russo from 1954 to 1958; Eurocentric music with Easley Blackwood from 1963 to 1967; Middle Eastern music with Nubian master musician Hamza El Din from 1971 to 2004, with whom he also collaborated; and raga with North Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath from 1973 to 1996. Mathieu's recordings reflect the integration of these and many other influences.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s (as Bill Mathieu), he spent several years as an arranger and composer for Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington orchestras.[1] Kenton's album Standards in Silhouette consists entirely of Mathieu's arrangements[2] and revealed the young Mathieu (then 22 years of age) to be an adept manipulator of compositional materials.

He was one of the founders and the musical director for The Second City in Chicago,[3] the first ongoing improvisational theater troupe in the United States, and was later the musical director for The Committee, an improv theater in San Francisco that was an offshoot of The Second City. In the 1970s, he was on the faculties of San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Mills College. In 1969, Mathieu founded the Sufi Choir in San Francisco among followers of Samuel L. Lewis, and he directed the choir until 1982.

Mathieu enjoys sharing his tuning expertise with others, including beginners — and especially those who are convinced they are tone-deaf. “Nobody is tone-deaf,” he claims. He has regularly trained his “Tone-Deaf Choirs” to sing in tune, often in public.

He now devotes himself to practice, performance, recording, composition, teaching, and writing from his home near Sebastopol, California.

Early life

Mathieu was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was Aron M. Mathieu (1907-1996), publisher and founder of Minicam (later retitled Modern Photography) in 1937, editor at Writer's Digest for three decades, and founder of the Writer's Market franchise. His mother was Rosella Feher Mathieu (1906-2008), noted authority on herbs, and author of Herb Grower's Complete Guide (1950), one of the first books in the United States on growing and cooking with herbs.

In Cincinnati, Mathieu attended Kennedy-Silverton Elementary School (1942-1949) and Walnut Hills High School (1949-1954). In Chicago, he attended University of Chicago (1954-1958), earning a BA degree.

Discography

Solo piano improvisations

Multitrack compositions

Piano compositions

Instrumental compositions

Song cycles

Improvisational collaborations

Collaborations

Big Band jazz

The Sufi Choir

Audio books

Bibliography

An audio edition of The Listening Book was issued in 1991 by Shambhala Lion Editions. That audio material was remastered and issued along with new audio material read from The Musical Life in 2008 as a 2 CD set (W. A. Mathieu reads from The Listening Book and The Musical Life) on Manifest Spirit Records.

Harmonic Experience (561 pages) offers a view of music theory that harmonizes Western and Eastern perspectives. Understanding can be actively enhanced by utilizing its autodidactic ear-training and sight-singing exercises, especially using singing sargam syllables over a drone such as a tamboura or possibly a Western fifth played in just intonation. Mathieu is described as Neo-Riemannian[1] and he cites Ernst Levy, who wrote of harmonic polarity and undertones, as an influence.[4] The book has been praised by folk musician Pete Seeger.[5]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Carey. Norman. 2002-03-01. W. A. Mathieu. Harmonic Experience. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1997. Music Theory Spectrum. en. 24. 1. 121–134. 10.1525/mts.2002.24.1.121. 0195-6167.
  2. Web site: Stan Kenton: Standards in Silhouette. Grimm. William. 8 Oct 2002. All About Jazz. en. 2019-04-08.
  3. Coda Magazine: Issue 319–330
  4. Yang . Chien-chang . 2000 . Review of Harmonic Experience: Tonal harmony from its natural origins to its modern expression . Notes . 56 . 3 . 687–689 . 0027-4380 . 899661.
  5. Web site: Harmonic Experience . innertraditions.com . 2019-04-04.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "W. A. Mathieu".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.