As a child, he transcribed for his father and developed an appreciation for calligraphy. One of his best-known pieces, Black Angels, was recorded by the Kronos Quartet and featured string players bowing goblets.Ĭrumb was also known for his unique scores. Singers are often challenged with caterwauling vocal gymnastics. In some of his orchestral pieces, musicians – sometimes masked – are instructed to walk around the stage blowing air – but not notes – through their horns, and to leave and enter the stage during the piece. Pianists must pluck the strings and employ a variety of items like chisels, paperclips and marbles to alter their sound. His compositions often require musicians to rethink the way they play. Echoes of Time and the River earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and Star-Child (1977) won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition in 2001. Night of the Four Moons (1969) was inspired by the Apollo 11 lunar landing, while Black Angels (1970) evokes a dark, surreal soundscape of the Vietnam War. He cited both Béla Bartók and Claude Debussy as influences. Instead, he made use of found sounds and objects to create wildly original pieces. He joined the staff at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 and remained there until 1997.Įarly in his career, Crumb said he was unable to compose in a traditional format. ![]() ![]() He taught at a college in Virginia before becoming a professor of piano and composition at the University of Colorado in 1958. He studied in Berlin as a Fullbright scholar, then returned to the U.S. ![]() He graduated from Charleston’s Mason School of Music in 1950 and earned a master’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. What makes his music stunningly different is a combination of who he is and where he came from.Ĭrumb’s father, clarinetist George Henry Crumb, Sr., and his mother, cellist Vivian Reed Crumb, both played with the Charleston Symphony. He was one of a select few to have been awarded both a Pulitzer Prize for Music and a Grammy Award. Writing for orchestras and ensembles, Crumb won many awards, accolades and admirers. Meet the Specks, the Black siblings credited with inventing the potato chip.Born and raised in Charleston, composer George Crumb was recognized the world over as one of the 20th century’s most adventurous and exceptional composers. Tell a friend about the inventors the next time you grab a bag! Because of them, we can. While the duo’s story may be forgotten by many, we want to make sure their story is kept alive. George ran his restaurant until its closing in 1890, passing away in 1914 at the age of 92. They became a local treat in the area until the 1920s when Herman Lay, future owner of Lay’s potato chips, began marketing the treat all over the South, the sibling’s invention eclipsed by the mass production and distribution of potato chips across the country. George would later open his own restaurant in Malta, New York where he regularly served the basket of chips. Cary Moon, owner of the restaurant, later tried to claim credit for the invention, mass distributing boxes of potato chips. Whatever the origin story, the potato chip rose to prominence as a result of the siblings, many coming to the restaurant from everywhere for the chips.
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