Background
Sims, Ezra was born on January 16, 1928 in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Son of Ezra G. and Kathryn W. (Wallace) Sims.
Sims, Ezra was born on January 16, 1928 in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Son of Ezra G. and Kathryn W. (Wallace) Sims.
Bachelor, Birmingham Southern College, 1947; postgraduate, Birmingham Conservatory Music, 1945-1948; Bachelor of Music in Composition, Yale University School Music, 1952; Master of Arts in Composition, Mills College, 1956.
He invented a system of notation which was adopted by many microtonal composers after him, including Joseph Maneri. His professional debut (12 note ET music) occurred on a Composers Forum program in New York, 1959. In 1960, compelled by his ear, he began writing microtonal music, and has continued to do so ever since, with the occasional exception being taped music for dancers.
His last composition in quarter tones (his sixth microtonal one) was his Third Quartet (1962).
Since 1971, whatever music he has composed that is not purely electronic has employed a system of asymmetrical modes of 18 pitches per octave, drawn from a 72-note division of the octave. I seem finally to have identified and made transcribable what my ear was after all along: a set of pitches ordered in an asymmetrical scale of 18 (or 19) notes, some of them acoustically more important than others, transposable through a chromatic of 72 pitches in the octave.
(1978) He has lectured on his music in the United States and abroad, most notably at the Hambürger Musikgespräch, 1994. The second Naturton Symposium in Heidelberg, 1992.
And the 3rd and 4th Symposium, Mikrotöne und Ekmelische Musik, at the Hochschüle für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mozarteum, Salzburg, in 1989 & 1991.
In 1992-1993, he was guest lecturer in the Richter Herf Institut für Musikalische Grundlagenforschung in the Mozarteum. He has published articles on his technique in Computer Music Journal, Mikrotöne III, Mikrotöne IV, Perspectives of New Music, and Ex Tempore. With the American cellist Theodore Mook, he designed a font, now widely adopted, for use with computer printing programs, based on his set of accidentals, which are sufficient for 72-note music
His music is published by Frog Peak Music and Diapason Press (Corpus Microtonale).
As his award citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters attests: Ezra Sims has already contributed an outstanding body of works, many of which have explored with singular imagination, conviction and success the beautiful but elusive world of microtonal music Ezra Sims at the Avant Garde Project has FLAC files made from a high-quality LP transcription available for free download.
Served as private United States Army, 1952-1954. Member American Composers Alliance, Broadcast Music, Inc.