Noah Creshevsky (January 31, 1945 – December 3, 2020) was a composer and electronic musician born in Rochester, New York. He used the term hyperrealism to describe his work.

Biography

Noah Creshevsky was born Gary Cohen in Rochester, New York, to Joseph and Sylvia Cohen. He changed his surname to Creshevsky in order to honor his maternal grandparents. At the same time he also changed his first name because, he said, "I never felt like a Gary." He studied in the preparatory division of the Eastman School of Music from the age of 6 until 1961, then earned a B.F.A. degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1966, studying with Lukas Foss. Trained in composition by Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Luciano Berio at the Juilliard School (earning a master's degree in 1968), Creshevsky lived and worked in New York beginning in 1966. There, he founded the New York Improvisation Ensemble. He taught at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York for 31 years, serving as Director of the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music (BC-CCM) from 1994 to 1999. He also served on the faculties of Juilliard and Hunter College, and was a visiting professor at Princeton University during the 1984 academic year. Creshevsky began composing electronic music in 1971. His musical vocabulary used bits of words, songs, and instrumental sounds. By fusing opposites—such as music and noise, comprehensible and incomprehensible vocal sources–Creshevsky attempted to make music that sounded both Western and non-Western, ancient and modern, familiar and unfamiliar. This alliance of opposites is heard both in his text-sound compositions (1973-1986)—Pop Art works in which extreme and unpredictable juxtapositions of iconographic sonic materials establish links between music and society —and in later pieces, in which the integration of electronic and acoustic sources and processes “creates virtual ‘superperformers’ by using the sounds of traditional instruments pushed past the capacities of human performance.” Creshevsky’s most recent compositions are examples of "Hyperrealism", a term he uses to describe an electroacoustic language constructed from sounds found in our shared environment that he handles in ways that are exaggerated or intense. Collections of Creshevsky's scores and sound recordings are held at the music libraries of Northwestern University. and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Creshevsky, who died of bladder cancer, was interred on Hart Island at his own request. Usually burials on Hart Island are for the homeless or poor and unclaimed bodies. According to his husband David Sachs (a teacher and book editor who lived with Creshevsky for 42 years), Creshevsky intended to protest the trappings and cost of traditional funerals.

Discography

CDs

Man & Superman (1992) Centaur Records CRC 2126 Who (1993) Centaur Records CRC 2476 Auxesis Electronic Music by Charles Amirkhanian and Noah Creshevsky (1995) Centaur Records CRC 2194 Hyperrealism (2003) Mutable Music Mutable 17516-2 The Tape Music of Noah Creshevsky, 1971-1992 (2004) EM Records (Japan) EM 1042CD To Know and Not to Know (2007) Tzadik Tzadik-8036 Favorite Encores, Music of Noah Creshevsky and If, Bwana, (2008) Pogus Pogus 21049-2 The Twilight of the Gods (2010) Tzadik Tzadik-8069 Rounded With A Sleep (2011) Pogus Pogus 21063-2 The Four Seasons (2013) Tzadik Tzadik-8097 Hyperrealist Music, 2011-2015 (2015) EM Records (Japan) EM 1140CD Sleeping Awake (2019) Open Space Open Space CD 37

Compilation albums

LPs

Dedications

Articles and reviews