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Biography
for|the Olympic rower|Harold Budd (rower)refimprove|date=November 2011Infobox musical artist | name = Harold Budd| image = Harold Budd.jpg| caption = Harold Budd in Japan Photo: Masao Nakagami| background = non_vocal_instrumentalist| birth_name =| alias =| birth_date = birth date and age|1936|5|24|mf=y|birth_place =Los Angeles, CaliforniaUnited States| death_date =| instrument = Piano , guitar | genre = Ambient music|Ambient , Drone music|drone | occupation = Musician , composer , poet , professor | years_active = 1962& ndash;present| label = Opal Records, Land Records, Darla Records , Samadhi Sound , New World Records , All Saints Records , E.G. Records , 4AD | associated_acts =| website =| notable_instruments = Harold Budd (born May 24, 1936) is an American ambient music|ambient / avant-garde composer and poet . Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert , and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires.Citation needed|date=November 2011
Education and academic career
Budd's career as a composer began in 1962. In the following years, he gained a notable reputation in the local avant-garde community.Citation needed|date=November 2011 In 1966 he graduated from the University of Southern California (having studied under Ingolf Dahl ) with a degree in musical composition. As he progressed, his compositions became increasingly minimalism|minimal . Among his more experimental works were two drone music pieces, "Coeur d'Orr" and "The Oak of the Golden Dreams". After composing a long-form gong solo titled "Lirio", he felt he had reached the limits of his experiments in minimalism and the avant-garde. He retired temporarily from composition in 1970 and began a teaching career at the California Institute of the Arts .Citation needed|date=November 2011 "The road from my first colored graph piece in 1962 to my renunciation of composing in 1970 to my resurfacing as a composer in 1972 was a process of trying out an idea and when it was obviously successful abandoning it. The early graph piece was followed by the Rothko orchestra work, the pieces for Source Magazine , the Morton Feldman|Feldman -derived chamber works, the pieces typed out or written in longhand , the out-and-out conceptual works among other things, and the model drone works (which include the sax and organ "Coeur d'Orr" and "The Oak of the Golden Dreams", the latter based on the Bali nese " Slendro " scale which scale I used again 18 years later on "The Real Dream of Sails").from the 1988 CD The White Arcades Citation needed|date=November 2011 "In 1970 with the "Candy-Apple Revision" (unspecified D-flat major) and "Lirio" (solo gong "for a long duration") I realized I had minimalized myself out of a career. It had taken ten years to reduce my language to zero but I loved the process of seeing it occur and not knowing when the end would come. By then I had opted out of avant-garde music generally; it seemed self-congratulatory and risk-free and my solution as to what to do next was to do nothing, to stop completely."
"I resurfaced as an artist in 1972 with "Madrigals of the Rose Angel", the first of what would be a cycle of works under the collective title The Pavilion of Dreams . Madrigals refused to accommodate or even acknowledge any issues in new music. The entire aesthetic was an existential prettiness; not the Platonic "to Kalon", but simply pretty: mindless, shallow and utterly devastating. Female chorus, harp and percussion seemed like a beautiful start. Its first performance was at a Franciscan church in California conducted by Daniel Lentz ." Budd, Harold, excerpt from liner notes for The Pavilion of Dreams , dated Los Angeles, October 1991Citation needed|date=November 2011
Composer and recording artist
Two years later, while still retaining his teaching career, he resurfaced as a composer. Spanning from 1972-1975 he created four individual works under the collective title "The Pavilion of Dreams". The style of these works was an unusual blend of popular jazz and the avant-garde. In 1976 he resigned from the institute and began recording his new compositions, produced by British ambient pioneer Brian Eno .Citation needed|date=November 2011 Two years later, Harold Budd's debut album The Pavilion of Dreams was released.
Since then he has developed a style of ambient music. His two collaborations with Brian Eno, The Plateaux of Mirror and The Pearl (album)|The Pearl , established his trademark atmospheric piano style. On Lovely Thunder he introduced subtle electronic textures. His thematic 2000 release The Room (album)|The Room saw a return to a more minimalist approach. In 2003, Daniel Lanois , the renowned producer of U2 and Bob Dylan , and occasional collaborator of Brian Eno, recorded an impromptu performance of Harold playing the piano in his Los Angeles living room, unaware, and thus realized the album La Bella Vista .
His album Avalon Sutra / As Long as I Can Hold My Breath|Avalon Sutra from 2004 was billed as "Harold Budd's Last Recorded Work" by the record label Samadhi Sound . Their press release continued: " Avalon Sutra brings to a conclusion thirty years of sustained musical activity. Asked for his reasons, Budd says only that he feels that he has said what he has to say. With characteristic humility, he concludes, "I don’t mind disappearing!" Citation needed|date=November 2011A special celebration concert featuring Budd and guest-starring many of the musicians he had worked with throughout his career was presented at BrightonDome in May 2005, also billed as being Budd's last public performance. In spite of this, Budd's soundtrack to the film Mysterious Skin - Music from the Film| Mysterious Skin (a collaboration with Robin Guthrie ) and '' Music for 'Fragments from the Inside' (with Eraldo Bernocchi ) were both released in 2005.
David Sylvian 's independent record label Samadhisound released Perhaps in February 2007, a live recording of Budd's improvised performance in tribute to his late friend (and associate teacher at the then newly formed California Institute of Arts ) James Tenney . Recorded at CalArts on December 6, the album is only available as a digital download.
Samadhisound released a podcast of Harold Budd in conversation with Akira Rabelais in April 2007. In this (Samadhisound Podcast #2), Harold said although he had believed at the time of recording Avalon Sutra that it would be his last album, he no longer felt that way. "It was a time in my life when things weren't just falling together for me, and I thought that I was just going to let it all slide ... and I was sincere about it but if I had been more conscious of my real feelings and had explored my inner sanctum more I would've seen that it was a preposterous thing to do ... I was dreadfully lonely; I was living alone in the desert and had been for too long, really, and I felt that isolation very severely after a while, and it's probably a version of self-pity, I'm sorry to say, to have publicly said something like that, but there it is, I said it, turns out I wasn't telling the truth - I didn't know it at the time."
Darla Records released two CDs by Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd in June 2007, After the Night Falls and Before the Day Breaks . Recorded in Spring 2006, each features nine tracks with linked titles, e.g. "How Distant Your Heart"/"How Close Your Soul" and "I Returned Her Glance"/"And Then I Turned Away".
In October 2008, a collaboration with Clive Wright entitled Song for Lost Blossoms was released by Darla Records. It includes recordings that were done live and in-studio at different locations, including both artists' homes. The album features some of their work done together between 2004 and 2006. A second collaborative effort with Wright, Candylion followed in 2009, again on Darla Records.
It was announced that Harold Budd will appear as one of the featured composer/performers at San Francisco's Other Minds festival in March, 2012. http://www.otherminds.org/home.htm Harold Budd at Other Minds in 2012
Discography
Main|Harold Budd discography ;Studio albums
''The Oak of the Golden Dreams / Coeur D'Orr (1971), Advance Recordings
The Pavilion of Dreams (1978), E.G. Records|E.G. - Produced by Brian Eno
Abandoned Cities (1984), Cantil
Lovely Thunder (1986), E.G. - Produced by Michael Hoenig
The White Arcades (1988), Opal - Produced by Brian Eno
'' By the Dawn's Early Light (1991), Opal - With Bill Nelson (musician)|Bill Nelson
She is a Phantom (1994), New Albion - With Zeitgeist (ensemble)|Zeitgeist
Luxa (1996), All Saints Records|All Saints
The Room (album)|The Room (2000), Atlantic Records|Atlantic
La Bella Vista (2003), Shout Factory
Avalon Sutra / As Long as I Can Hold My Breath (2005), Samadhi Sound - Produced by Harold Budd
Perhaps (2007), Samadhi Sound
In The Mist (2011), Darla Records|Darla
See also
Electronic music
Ambient music
Brian Eno
References
reflist
External links
http://haroldbudd.com/ Harold Budd Home page
http://www.newalbion.com/artists/buddh/index.htm New Albion Records Harold Budd page
http://www.samadhisound.com/haroldbudd/ Samadhisound Harold Budd page
http://www.sleepbot.com/ambience/page/budd.html Ambience for the Masses Harold Budd page
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/jan97/haroldbudd.html Harold Budd: American Vision article from Sound On Sound magazine
http://www.soundnet.org/concerts/mov_refs/2004.shtml#budd soundNET Concert Archives A rare live performance of works by Harold Budd (September 18, 2004) streaming Quicktime audio
http://www.eleventhvolume.com/reviews/concerts/files/harold_budd.html Somnambule Review of Harold Budd "Farewell Concert" at BrightonDome (May 21, 2005)
http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/features/article220720.ece Harold Budd: Harold in May article from The Independent (May 8, 2005)
Harold BuddBrian EnoRobin GuthrieCocteau Twins Persondata | NAME =Budd, Harold | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = Ambient composer and musician | DATE OF BIRTH =May 24, 1936 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Los Angeles, CaliforniaUnited States | DATE OF DEATH = | PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Budd, Harold Category:Harold Budd| Category:1936 births Category:Living people Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:University of Southern California alumni Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Ambient musicians Category:New Age musicians Category:American pianists Category:American electronic musicians Category:American experimental musicians Category:American poets Category:American record producers Category:All Saints Records artists Category:E.G. Records artists Category:4AD artists Category:Samadhi Sound artists
