Malcolm Goldstein

(*1936) has been continuously active in the field of new music and new dance since the early 1960s. As a composer/violinist, he directed and founded the Tone Roads Ensemble and was a member of renowned institutions such as the Judson Dance Theater, the New York Festival of the Avant Garde and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. In recent decades, Goldstein has traveled to North America, Europe and most recently Japan, giving solo concerts and performing as a soloist with various music and dance ensembles. Countless composers have worked with Malcolm Goldstein and written works especially for him, including John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Christian Wolff and Hans Otte. Goldstein’s violin improvisations under the title “soundings” gained international recognition as they expanded the sound spectrum of the violin and opened up new dimensions of expressivity for the instrument.

Since the mid-1960s, improvisation has been the essential category in Goldstein’s music. For his conceptual compositions (“structured improvisational settings”), he invented a variety of new notations for chamber, vocal and orchestral ensembles. Goldstein works with professional ensembles and orchestras, teaches at universities and dance institutes and is a sought-after lecturer for improvisation workshops. His book “Sounding the Full Circle (concerning music improvisation and other related matters) “*, published in 1988, brings together many of the essays and articles he has published elsewhere over the years. In these writings, Goldstein paints his picture of the improvising musician in a multifaceted and inimitable way: constantly on a journey of discovery, always allowing the moment to unfold anew, becoming real as a gesture, as sound…

* out of print as a book, but can be downloaded on the Internet – authorized by Goldstein – at: www.frogpeak.org