R. Murray Schafer

R. Murray Schafer
CC FRCMT(hon)
Schafer in 2007
Schafer in 2007
Background information
Born
Raymond Murray Schafer

(1933-07-18)July 18, 1933
Sarnia, Ontario
DiedAugust 14, 2021(2021-08-14) (aged 88)
Indian River, Ontario
GenresAvant-garde, classical, opera, musical theatre
OccupationsComposer, writer, educator, environmentalist
InstrumentPiano

Raymond Murray Schafer CC FRCMT(hon) (July 18, 1933 – August 14, 2021) was a Canadian composer, writer, music educator, and environmentalist perhaps best known for his World Soundscape Project, concern for acoustic ecology, and his book, The Tuning of the World (1977). He was the first recipient of the Jules Léger Prize in 1978.

Biography

In his memoir, My Life on Earth and Elsewhere, Schafer described serving as a novice deckhand aboard the oil tanker Imperial Windsor in 1955.

Born in Sarnia, Ontario, Schafer studied at the Royal Schools of Music in London, with Alberto Guerrero at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and at the University of Toronto, where he was a pupil of Richard Johnston.

His innovative approach to music education repeatedly challenged and transcended orthodox approaches through explorations of the relationships between music, performer, audience, and setting.

He started soundscape studies at Simon Fraser University in the 1960s. His 1977 book, The Tuning of the World, popularized the concept of soundscape (Schafer attributes the invention of the term itself to city planner Michael Southworth). Reviewing the book in The Musical Quarterly, Laske commented that it "is one of those rare texts which simultaneously broaden our notion of musical science and of music itself".

He also coined the term, schizophonia, in 1969, the splitting of a sound from its source or the condition caused by this split: "We have split the sound from the maker of the sound. Sounds have been torn from their natural sockets and given an amplified and independent existence. Vocal sound, for instance, is no longer tied to a hole in the head but is free to issue from anywhere in the landscape." Steven Feld, borrowing a term from Gregory Bateson, calls the recombination and recontextualization of sounds split from their sources schismogenesis.

A practitioner of graphic notation, Schafer's compositional oeuvre of over 100 works drew inspiration from a wide range of sources and utilized an array of performative forces. His most ambitious creative achievement was Patria, a 12-part music-theatre series written over a 40-year period.

In 1979, a five-record set of Schafer's music was included in the Anthology of Canadian Music series. The Schafer portrait in the Canadian Composers Portraits series was released in 2003.

Schafer received the first Glenn Gould Prize in 1987. He also received two Juno Awards for classical composition of the year: in 2004 for his String Quartet no. 8, and in 2011 for his Duo for Violin and Piano.

In 2003 Schafer was the artistic director of Coimbra Vibra!, an event that celebrated music and the acoustic environment, gathering 1,200 musicians and over 10,000 spectators in Coimbra, Portugal. In 2005 Schafer was keynote speaker at the 12th International Congress on Sound and Vibration. His presentation was entitled, "I Have Never Seen a Sound."

In 2005 Schafer was awarded the Walter Carsen Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts for lifetime achievement by a Canadian artist. In 2009, Schafer received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. In 2013, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada "for his contributions as an internationally renowned composer of contemporary music, and for his groundbreaking work in acoustic ecology".

Schafer died at his rural home in Indian River near Peterborough, Ontario, of Alzheimer's disease on August 14, 2021.

Since 2010, a World Listening Day organized by the World Listening Project has been held annually on July 18th; the date was chosen to honour Schafer's birthday.

Selected works

Compositions

Written works

Further reading

See also

References

  1. ↑ R. Murray Schafer (2012). My Life on Earth and Elsewhere. The Porcupine's Quill. pp. 30–34. ISBN 9780889843523. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
  2. ↑ Achilles, Elayne (1992). "Music Making beyond the Classroom: R. Murray Schafer answers questions about creative music making and lifelong learning". Music Educators Journal. 79 (4): 35–37. doi:10.2307/3398528. ISSN 0027-4321. JSTOR 3398528.
  3. ↑ "World Soundscape Project". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 26 February 2007.
  4. ↑ Schafer, R. Murray (1977). The Tuning of the World. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-40966-3.
  5. ↑ Laske, O. (1978). "Review of The Tuning of the World". The Musical Quarterly. 64 (3): 394–397. doi:10.1093/mq/LXIV.3.394. ISSN 0027-4631. JSTOR 741509.
  6. ↑ Mathieu, W.A. (1994). The Musical Life. Shambhala. p. 223. ISBN 0-87773-670-7.
  7. ↑ Feld, Steven; Keil, Charles (1994). Music Grooves: Essays and Dialogues. University of Chicago Press. pp. 265–271. ISBN 0-226-42957-1.
  8. ↑ R. Murray Schafer at National Arts Centre ArtsAlive web site. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
  9. ↑ "R. Murray Schafer, first Glenn Gould Prize laureate, dies at age 88". Glenn Gould Foundation. 2021-08-16. Retrieved 2026-09-02.
  10. ↑ Potvin, Gilles (2006-02-07). "Anthology of Canadian Music/Anthologie de la musique canadienne". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada.
  11. 1 2 Biggs, Charlene (2003). "R. Murray Schafer [review]". CAML Review. 31 (1): 46–47. doi:10.25071/1708-6701.2385.
  12. ↑ Schafer, R. Murray (2009-09-01). "I have never seen a sound". Canadian Acoustics. 37 (3): 32–34. ISSN 2291-1391.
  13. ↑ "Composer R. Murray Schafer wins Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts" (Press release). Canada Council for the Arts. 8 November 2005. Archived from the original on 5 February 2007. Retrieved 22 February 2007.
  14. ↑ "R. Murray Schafer biography". Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  15. ↑ "Governor General Announces 90 New Appointments to the Order of Canada". 30 December 2013.
  16. ↑ Rowat, Robert (15 August 2021). "R. Murray Schafer, composer, writer and acoustic ecologist, has died at 88". CBC.ca. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  17. ↑ "Composer R. Murray Schafer dies at 88". Peterborough Examiner. 2021-08-16. Retrieved 2026-03-07.
  18. ↑ Barnatt-Smith, Rebecca (2021-07-16). "World Listening Day 2021: What is Acoustic Ecology?". I, Science - the Science Magazine of Imperial College. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  19. ↑ Weidenbaum, Marc (2024-07-31). "The "Soundscape" Heard 'Round the World". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
  20. ↑ Brief description of the complete Patria cycle and an Overview of the Patria Cycle
  21. ↑ The Palace of the Cinnabar Phoenix
  22. ↑ Kaptainis, Arthur (11 March 2011). "Symphony Review: Schafer's First". National Post. Toronto.