I have just returned from a concert tour of Japan and received an email that my dearest friend, mentor and guiding spirit of imagination and creativity had passed on Saturday April 26th.

Henry Brant was one of the last surviving members of the original generation of early 20th century American maverick composers. But more than that, to me he was a dear friend and invaluable mentor of nearly 5 decades.

My heart was deeply saddened as I reflected on the first time I met Henry, when I was in college, through our wonderful friend and colleague the great Contrabassist Bertram Turetzky.

I met Henry for the first time at the train station in Hartford, Connecticut, and will never forget his wearing of a baseball, or engineer’s, cap when he just got off the train.

This, or simply a visor, was Henry’s signature.

I will miss him so very much as, when we were together, we were always in very deep conversations about various aspects of music and acoustics. Our conversations would include, for example, various discussions of how certain structures of music could be approached in a variety of ways to create new sounds based upon the early Gregorian Chants.

It is because of Henry that I have found the love of composing , have been able to freely express my music thoughts, and have developed an awareness of Spatial Acoustics .From this awareness came my development of the Zeta Polyphonic violin - a MIDI synthony instrument that can be played and heard in a very large space.

Henry composed three masterpieces for me, Crossroads, Litany of Tides, and Solar Moth. I premiered Litany of Tides with the San Jose Symphony. Together, Solar Moth and my own composition Autumn Beyond were featured on The New York Times Best Recordings list.

In the near future I will be sharing some of the many wonderful experiences that we shared through nearly 5 decades of music collaborations.

Henry is home now with the music of the Spheres. For us, his music will live on for centuries, reminding us of his great invention, expression, and passionate explorations of multi-colored beauty within vast spatial music designs.

I will miss Henry with all of my heart and soul, as he was such an inspiration through our frequent sharings of such multi-faceted ways of perceiving and approaching the art of music, which we both loved so much.

Be well my dearest friend, until we visit again in our pathless journeys.

Daniel Kobialka

About Henry Brant

Henry was a great part of American Music History, a pioneer in the development of spatial music. He was the composer who first envisioned the planned positioning of performers throughout the concert hall, as well as on stage. This became an essential factor in his composing scheme and a point of departure for a radically expanded range and intensity of musical expression.

“In the early 1950’s Brant had come to feel that “single-style music…could no longer evoke the new stresses, layered insanities, and multi-directional assaults of contemporary life on the spirit.” Brant began to explore spatial music, and his principal large-scale works and chamber music since 1950 are all spatial. In keeping with Brant’s belief that music can be as complex and contradictory as everyday life, his larger works often employ multiple, contrasting performing forces.”

“Brant’s spatial experiments convinced him that space exerts specific influences on harmony, polyphony, texture and timbre. He regarded space as music’s “fourth dimension” (after pitch, time and timbre). Brant continued to experiment with new combinations of acoustic timbres, even creating entire works for instrumental family groups of a single timbre: Orbits for 80 trombones, Ghosts & Gargoyles for multiple flutes, and others for multiple trumpets, flutes and guitars.”
- (Source: http://www.jaffe.com/BrantBio.html”)

Some of Henry Brant’s most memorable achievements

1955 The Prix Italia (he was the first American composer to win)
1982 The American Music Center’s Letter of Distinction: he was described as “a pioneer of spatial and antiphonal music and a continuing influence on succeeding generations.”
Two Guggenheim Fellowships
2002 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Ice Field