George Lewis, a professor of music at the University of California, San Diego, has been named a winner of a MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Lewis, a composer, performer, teacher, theorist and historian, is the ninth UCSD faculty member to win a MacArthur Fellowship, a $500,000 award spread over a five-year period. Fellows receive $100,000 a year for five years.
There are no restrictions on how the money can be spent or what is expected from the recipients.
In announcing this year's winners the Fellowship Program noted, "The 24 new Fellows for 2002 are men and women of many ages, working in many different areas, each of whom is highly focused and tenacious and distinctively fresh
and original in approach. They are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things."
Of his award plans, Lewis said, "The MacArthur Fellowship will allow the completion of my history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), one of the most influential experimental music movements
of the past quarter-century. I also expect to be able to develop larger-scale projects in interactive computer media. Finally, for me, this fellowship recognizes the interdisciplinary work taking place in the Critical Studies/Experimental Practices Curriculum in UCSD's Department of Music."
Lewis joined the UCSD faculty in 1991 as an assistant professor of music. In 1996 he joined his music department colleague, musicologist Jann Pasler, in founding the Critical Studies/Experimental Practices program in the
Department of Music. The emphasis of the CSEP program is on the exploration of experimental music-making, combined with the critical, interdisciplinary examination of music and musical ideas within human societies.
John Fonville, chair of the Department of Music, noted that "George Lewis' work as an artist and scholar, both within academia and the artistic world beyond the walls, is extraordinary and richly merits the recognition and
prestige of the MacArthur Fellowship award." Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed has said of Lewis "As a thinker,
Lewis may be a voracious intellectual, but as a musician he is a galvanizing presence who seems to transcend the need for words altogether. His improvisations on the trombone…command a mesmerizing sonic universe." The famed trombonist often is described as the world's leading practitioner of live, interactive computer music using improvisational techniques.
Lewis' work as composer, improviser, performer and interpreter is documented on more than 120 recordings. He has researched electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, text-sound works and notated
forms. He created Voyager, a computer music program where the computer improvises with the musician.
As a performer, he has mastered the lyrical, tonal and percussive qualities of the trombone. His compositions bridge traditions of acoustic and electric, American and European, rhythmic and free form. He explores a wide variety of expressive modes, including text-sound collaborations with poets.
Lewis also has been a pioneer in the application of computers to algorithmic improvisation. His performances, criticism and scholarly analyses reveal profound insights into the unique expressive potential of improvisation and its critical role in the history and future of musical expression.
Through his choice of primary forms, improvisational styles, mathematical
analyses and historical reflections, Lewis sits at the vanguard of contemporary musical expression.
Since 1971 Lewis has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), one of the most influential experimental music movements of the past quarter-century. Lewis studied composition with Muhal
Richard Abrams at the AACM School of Music, and trombone with Dean Hey. Lewis has served as music curator for the Kitchen in New York, and has collaborated in the "Interarts Inquiry" and "Integrative Studies Roundtable" at the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago. He received a B.A. in
Philosophy from Yale University. Lewis has received numerous Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is the 1999 recipient of the Cal Arts/Alpert Award in the Arts.
He has taught at Mills College, Simon Fraser University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
His eclectic resume includes collaborations with everyone from the Count Basie and Gil Evans orchestras to John Zorn and Irene Schweizer.