VIDEO PODCAST: John Dante Prevedini leads a discussion about The Creative Spark, including contributions from Ryan Ash, Sean Neukom, Adrian Rumson, Stephen Francis Vasta, David Arditti, Halida Dinova and Andrew Arceci.
PROVOCATIVE THOUGHTS:
The late Patric Standford may have written these short pieces deliberately to provoke our feedback. If so, his success is reflected in the rich range of readers' comments appearing at the foot of most of the pages.
German composer Gene Gutchë was born in Berlin on 3 July 1907 as Romeo Maximilian Eugene Ludwig Gutschë. He received little musical encouragement from his parents, and so he emigrated to the USA and studied composition at the Universities of Iowa and Minnesota, finally settling in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, where he began his career. He didn't teach and wasn't affiliated with any music schools - he was able to make his career solely from composing.
Gutchë had works performed across the USA and won the Guggenheim Prize, although very little of his output was recorded during his lifetime. He died aged 93 in White Bear Lake on 15 November 2000.