Artist
Richard Cameron-Wolfe
Inspired by his FIASCO creative experience, Cameron-Wolfe commenced formal composition training, acquiring a strong foundation in the art from his first teacher, Bernhard Heiden (in the Hindemith tradition). His subsequent teachers included microtonalist John Eaton, Chilean composer Juan Orrego-Salas, and the Greek-French avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis. He also acknowledges two important mentors who guided him: visual artist Robert Kostka and Jungian astrologer, painter, and composer Dane Rudhyar.
Abandoning his Doctorate in 1974, Cameron-Wolfe taught briefly at the University of Wisconsin, where he was active in the ensemble Music from almost Yesterday. Then, for the next 27 years, he resided in New York City. Shortly after arriving there in 1975, finding a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village, he composed and performed his “Solaris” with the Jose Limon Modern Dance Company, premiered his “Kyrie(Mantra)I” in the “uptown” venue Carnegie Recital Hall, and presented several of his works at Environ, the “downtown” loft of Chris Brubeck.
In the ensuing years, he has composed several works for modern dance choreographers, created micro-operas (brief theatrical works of a maximum 15-minute duration), created vocal music using his own poetry, and more recently has begun writing in a microtonal musical vocabulary, exploring the myriad of “notes between the notes” - what Mexican composer Julian Carrillo called “Sonido Trece” (the thirteenth sound).