Musicians - Richard Maxfield

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	Musicians - Richard Maxfield

Richard Maxfield (February 2, 1927 - 1969) was a composer of instrumental, electro-acoustic, and electronic. He most likely taught the first University-level course in electronic music in America at the New School for Social Research. As a student in Berkeley and Europe in the 1950's, he composed instrumental scores in a Neo-Classical style and then adopting 12-tone techniques, eventually studying at Princeton University with Milton Babbitt. Encounters with contemporary European innovations, the music of John Cage, and techniques for composing with magnetic tape would however prove decisive in the development of his mature compositions. Among his innovations with tape music were the simultaneous performance of improvised instrumental solos with tapes based upon samples of the same soloist, re-editing of tapes before each public performance so that the pieces were not fixed in a single form, and the use of the erase head of the tape machine as a sound source. He was also an active Fluxus participant and a friend of La Monte Young. In 1969 he committed suicide.

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