Name, Title, & Role(s) Position/Title:
Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition
Administrative Roles:
Chair, Composition Area Committee (2009-10)
Contact Information
Fred Lerdahl taught at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University, at Columbia from 1979-85, and subsequently at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, before returning to Columbia in 1991.
He has received the Koussevitzky Composition Prize (1966), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1974-75), two awards from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1971, 1988), an NEH Fellowship (1991), and other awards, and many commissions for compositions.
Degrees, Publications, and Recordings Degrees:
BMus composition/piano (Lawrence University 1965)
MFA composition (Princeton 1967)
Selected Publications:
A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. [with Ray Jackendoff] Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (1983).
Tonal Pitch Space. New York: Oxford University Press (2001).
"Spatial and Psychoacoustic Factors in Atonal Prolongation." Current Musicology 63 (1997).
"Calculating Tonal Tension." Music Perception 13.3, 319-363 (1996).
"Perception of Musical Tension in Short Chord Sequences: The Influence of Harmonic Function, Sensory Dissonance, Horizontal Motion, and Musical Training." [with Emmanuel Bigand and Richard Parncutt] Perception & Psychophysics 58 (1996).
"Tonal and Narrative Paths in Parsifal." In Musical Transformation and Musical Intuition: Essays in Honor of David Lewin. Roxbury: Ovenbird Press (1994).
"Octatonic and Hexatonic Pitch Space." Proceedings of the International Conference for Music Perceptions and Cognition (1994).
Selected Compositions:
*Quiet Music (1994) for orchestra
*Without Fanfare (1994) for winds and percussion
* Marches (1992) for chamber ensemble
* Waves (1988) for chamber ensemble: CD DGG 435389-2
* Cross-Currents (1987) for orchestra
* Fantasy Etudes (1985) for chamber ensemble: CD CRI CD580
* Episodes and Refrains (1982) for wind quintet
* Waltzes (1981) for violin, viola, 'cello and double bass: CD CRI CD580
* Second String Quartet (1982)
* First String Quartet (1978): CD CRI CD551
* Eros (1975) for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble: CD CRI CD580
* Wake (1968) for soprano and chamber ensemble: CD CRI CD580
