Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (1934) studied piano with Grete Sultan and composition, briefly, with John Cage. Though he is mostly self-taught as a composer, the works of John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, and Earle Brown have been important to him, along with long associations with Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski. His work has been especially concerned with allowing performers (both professional and amateur) various degrees of freedom in the performance process. A number of pieces, from 1953 on, have been used or commissioned by Merce Cunningham. Wolff is also active as a performer and improviser (collaborating with, among others, Takehisa Kosugi and Larry Polansky). He has taught at Harvard and at Dartmouth College and received awards and grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes (DAAD) Berlin. Christian Wolff has been involved with Ostrava Days since 2001, both as a lecturer and as a musician; he also stood at its origins.
