Gerald Strang

Gerald Strang (February 13, 1908 – November 2, 1983) was an American composer who later in life turned to electronic and computer music. Early in his career he worked with Arnold Schoenberg as a teaching assistant and became one of the disciples of Schoenberg’s American period. Strang was born in Claresholm, Alberta and studied at Stanford University and the University of Southern California, where he completed a PhD in 1948. His teachers included Charles Koechlin and Ernst Toch. He was Arnold Schoenberg’s teaching assistant at UCLA between 1936 and 1938. In 1967 Strang edited Schoenberg’s Fundamentals of Musical Composition for publication. Strang became a lifelong teacher, at Long Beach City College (1938–58), San Fernando Valley State College (1958–65, where he founded the music department and taught Harold Budd), and California State University, then returning to Long Beach (1965–9) and UCLA (1969–74). In the 1930s he contributed to and (from 1936) acted as the managing editor of the New Music Society of California’s New Music journal. During the war he interrupted his musical activities, working as an engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company. Cowell’s direct influence is evide