UI was a composer for five years before I had any formal musical training in harmony, rhythm, formal structure, orchestration, and notation. From 1970–75 I blissfully created works without ‘knowing’ what I was doing, and in one case, created an orchestral piece by writing out the individual instrumental parts before the score, which, trust me, is about as ass backwards as it gets when it comes to the practicalities of music composition. There was something, though, about these early years being unfettered by rules and strictures that fed my sense of freedom and wonder at not just the sound of music, but also the way in which musical notation could be represented on paper. Early on it became clear to me that I could do whatever I wanted with notation as long as the symbols and the way I placed them upon the page possessed an intrinsic clarity and logic that was easily understood by the performers. At about the same time that I was creating my ass backwards orchestral piece, I discovered the work of composer George Crumb, whose music not only sounded, but looked otherworldly and beautiful as well. The lovely thing about a Crumb score was that the staves that turned into spirals and circles and crucifixes did not exist as gimmickry, but clearly aided the performers in capturing the theatricality or drama of a given moment in sound in a way that would not likely be achieved by any other notational means. To me conventional notation already possesses visual beauty, but the distance beyond convention that Crumb and many others, including myself, have taken it, has often raised the musical score page to the level of visual art. For example, in 1988, ten pages from my piece In the Throat of River Mornings were displayed at the 101 Wooster Gallery in Soho in New York City as part of the gallery’s Hear Art exhibition.

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JEROME KITZKE’S music has been played around the world by a wide variety of soloists and ensembles. Pianist Sarah Cahill will premiere There is a Field in the fall of 2008 and the KRONOS Quartet will premiere Winter Count, with actor Jennifer Kathryn Marshall, in the spring of 2009. Current commissions are held with pianists Anthony de Mare and Lisa Moore, DuoSolo, and Present Music, who will premiere Mr. Kitzke’s evening length theatrical musical work Buffalo Nation (Bison bison), with a text by Kathleen Masterson, in the fall of 2010. He lives in New York City and his music is recorded on the Koch, New World, and Innova labels. His work is published by Peer Music in New York City and Hamburg.

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