Robert Ashley Author & Editor

Robert Ashley is a prolific composer and writer, best known for his work in new forms of opera: epic prose poems he sets to music, which have been awarded, commissioned, and performed internationally for over forty-five years. In the 1960s, Ashley organized Ann Arbor's legendary ONCE Festival and directed the ONCE Group. During the 1970s, he directed the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, toured with the Sonic Arts Union, and wrote and producedPerfect Lives, an opera for television widely praised as the precursor of "music-television." Staged versions of ATALANTA (ACTS OF GOD) have toured throughout Europe and the United States. Kyle Gann is music critic for the "Village Voice "and Associate Professor of Music at Bard College. He is the author of "American Music in the Twentieth Century "(1997) and "The Music of Conlon Nancarrow "(1995).