A 1977 graduate of UC Santa Cruz,
guitarist Larry Polansky (1954) was at the forefront of avantgarde music
of the post-minimalist generation.
At one time he was the director of the Center for Contemporary Music at
Mills College in Oakland
(1981-1990)
and the founder of the avantgarde
composers collective Frog Peak Music.
The Theory of Impossible Melody (Artifact, 1989) collects computer music
created using the HMSL (Hierarchical Music Specification Language), notably
B'rey'sheet - Cantillation Study #1 (1986),
Simple Actions/ Rules Of Compossibility (1986) for live interactive computer and voice, and
Psaltery (1979), an algorithmic manipulation of an Appalachian hand-held bowed psaltery.
In 1990 he moved to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
There are three cantillation studies:
Cantillation Study #1, B'rey'sheet (In the Beginning) (1986) for voice and voice-controlled live computer;
Cantillation Study #2, v'Leem'Shol (... and to rule ...) (1984) for flute and computer;
and
Cantillation Study #3, E'leh Tol'd'ot (these are the generations) (1986) for four marimbas or four marimbas and computer commentary.
Simple Harmonic Motion (Artifact, 1994) contains the 24-minute
Another You for harp, the 12-minute Movement For Lou Harrison
for bass and the 18-minute Horn for French horn and computer.
Polansky's tour de force
Lonesome Road (The Crawford Variations) (New World, 2001 ), composed in 1989,
consists of 51 variations for solo piano on the folk song Lonesome Road.
Four-Voice Canons (2002) collects 16 of Polansky's surgical precision
canons composed between 1978 and 2002.
The World's Longest Melody (2010) collects compositions that span a long
period of time (from the 1970s to the 2000s) with no particular rationale.
New Hampshire neighbors Larry Polansky
and Christian Wolff (a contemporary of
John Cage and Morton Feldman) enjoy improvising together,
as documented on the free-form improvisations of
Trios (Pogus, 2004) and
Trio (Henceforth, 2012), the latter featuring
Chinese-born pianist Kui Dong.
Three Pieces for Two Pianos (New World, 2016)
applies algorithmic modifiers to traditional songs.
FreeHorn (Cold Blue Music, 2017) is mainly devoted to the 20-minute title-track, an octet interacting with real-time computer software.
Between
2013 and 2019
he taught at UC Santa Cruz.
Larry Polansky died in 2024.
