The Music of Godfrey Winham

Born in 1934 in London, American composer Godfrey Winham died at the age of 40. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and later attended Princeton where he studied with Roger Sessions. He worked at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center writing for the RCA Sound Synthesizer, which fostered his interest in this medium. From 1964 until his death in 1975, he was a pioneer and authority in the field of computer music. He also wrote music criticism and contributed to journals like Music Review and Tempo. The bulk of his writings on music, theory, logic and philosophy are at the Firestone Library of Princeton. His short life limited his actual number of music compositions, but the works on this recording are representative of his output. This is the first recording devoted exclusively to his music. Every musical work by Winham was an essay on music, showing by example the content and implications of his complex evolving philosophy of music. The music is performed by some of the best-known exponents of contemporary music, including soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Alan Feinberg.