Beverly Grigsby
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Beverly Grigsby (née Pinsky, January 11, 1928 – August 22, 2022) was an American composer, musicologist and electronic/computer music pioneer.
Beverly Pinsky was born in Chicago, Illinois, and studied music and ballet as a child. She danced in Chicago Civic Opera's ballet chorus.[1] She moved to California with her family at the age of 13 and graduated from Fairfax High School at age 16.[2]
Education
Grigsby entered the University of Southern California to study pre-med, and also studied composition with Ernst Krenek at the Southern California School of Music and the Arts. She earned Bachelor of Arts (in 1961) and Master of Arts (in 1963) degrees in composition from San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge); upon graduation she was hired to teach at her alma mater. In 1971 she earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts in composition from the University of Southern California.[3] She later studied computer music generation at Stanford University’s Center for Artificial Intelligence (CCRMA) and at M.I.T. in 1975-1976.[2]
Career
In 1962 she scored Francis Coppola's UCLA student film Ayamonn the Terrible with a music concrète score.[3]
In 1963 Grigsby took a position teaching music at California State University, Northridge. With Krenek and Aurelio de la Vega, she established its Computer Music Studio. This was the first electronic music studio on the United States' west coast based at a university; other private studios had been established earlier by Ivor Darreg, John Robb, Henry Jacobs, Paul Beaver, and the San Francisco Tape Music Center.[4] She taught theory, composition, and musicology there until her retirement in 1993. Her studio focused on analog synthesis, electronic music, and computer-generated music. Her studio was among the first to acquire a Synclavier and later a Fairlight CMI.
In 1984 Grigsby composed the first computerized opera score, for The Mask of Eleanor.
Along with Jeannie G. Pool, she founded the International Institute for the Study of Women in Music in 1985.[5][6] She was heavily involved with the International Congress on Women in Music.
The 1994 Northridge earthquake destroyed her personal studio.[3] After her retirement from CSU Northridge she continued to teach privately and work as a composer. She studied medieval and renaissance music in Solesmes Abbey, a site of major musicological interest in Gregorian chant due to Dom Prosper Guéranger's revival of the Benedictine Order and its original monastic traditions; this led to her being named a Getty Museum Research Scholar in 1997 and 1998.[1]
Her music has been performed internationally.[7]
Death
Grigsby died on August 22, 2022, at the age of 94.[8]
Honors and awards
- The National Endowment for the Arts award in 1977.[9]
- The Arts International (Rockefeller) Grant
- CSUN Distinguished Professor Award
- CSU Chancellor’s Maxi Grant
- IAWM Outstanding Music Contribution Award
- Annual ASCAP awards
- Carnegie Mellon Fellow in Technology (1987)
- Getty Museum Research Scholar (1997–98)
- Honorary board member of the Ernst Krenek Society[1]
