 Described by Nicolas Slonimsky
in the Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians as a "significant
American composer," Donald Erb was born in Youngstown, Ohio,
in 1927. His orchestral music has been played by literally every major
orchestra in the United States
and many in Europe and Australia
as well. He has had major commissions from the Chicago
Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Baltimore
Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Houston Symphony and
others. One work, "The Seventh Trumpet," has had over two hundred
performances by over fifty orchestras in the United States and abroad. It was
chosen as the United
States representative to UNESCO in 1970.
Among his orchestral works are ten concertos which have been premiered by
such artists as Lynn Harrell, Richard Stoltzman,
Stuart Dempster and the brass section of the Chicago Symphony.
His early
interest in electronic music led to one of the first chamber works for live
synthesizer and acoustic instruments. The work "Reconnaissance,"
written in 1965, was premiered on Music in Our Time in New York with Robert Moog operating the
synthesizer. It was presented at Expo '67 in Montreal
and later on Monday Evening Concerts in Los
Angeles.
Erb's chamber
music has been performed by major artists around the world on series such as
the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Darmstadt, Tanglewood
and the Group for Contemporary Music. A new work recently commissioned by the
Library of Congress was performed there by Miriam Fried and James Tocco. His early experience as a jazz trumpeter has led
to many compositions in that medium-including one for jazz great Jim Hall, a
longtime friend.
Donald Erb has taught composition for over thirty years at such
schools as Southern Methodist University, Indiana
University and Melbourne University.
He is now Distinguished Professor of Composition at The Cleveland Institute
of Music and also holds the position of Composer-in-Residence with the St. Louis Symphony.
Over the years Erb has been in demand as a visiting
lecturer and has given master classes and concerts at well over one hundred
colleges, universities and conservatories in the United States. Among his credits
is the major article on Orchestration for the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Erb has not only
helped to pioneer the acceptance of electronic sounds in conventional music
circles, but has also helped to extend the use of traditional instruments
beyond their normal limits. He may have the instruments played in unusual
ranges or in unconventional ways: piano strings may be struck with mallets;
trumpet mouthpieces may be removed and played without the trumpet. The total
effect is extremely colorful, and it cannot be dismissed as
"noise." Although he sometimes uses aleatoric
methods, his compositions always have form as well as freedom; he never loses
control of them. Of his music, Erb has said:
"A craftsman can create entertainment, but you need more than that to
create art. You need an emotional, inspirational quality, because in and of
itself craft means nothing. There has to be something inside you pushing out
or all a person will ever write is a craftsmanlike
piece. And that's not quite good enough."
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