March 15 - Colin McPhee (The Musical Birthday Series)

Colin McPhee (March 15, 1900  – January 7, 1964) did important pioneering ethnomusicological work on Balinese music.  His best-known compositions are strongly influenced by these studies.

Cultural Exchange

Consider the case of Colin McPhee

Whose ethnomusicology

Led to composing with colors and forms

Based on Asian island norms.

This kind of thing is no longer PC

(To borrow a gamelan’s timbre, e.g.),

But back in the day the appeal of exotic

Colors, and rhythms, and forms was hypnotic.

McPhee showed the music of Bali to Britten,

Who liked what he heard, in a word, he was smitten,

And thus Curlew River came to be written