Richard Cameron-Wolfe

Composer-pianist Richard Cameron-Wolfe was born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA and received his music training at Oberlin College and Indiana University. His principal piano teachers were Joseph Battista and Menahem Pressler; his composition mentors included Bernard Heiden, Iannis Xenakis, and John Eaton.

After brief teaching engagements at Indiana University, Radford College (Virginia), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Cameron-Wolfe moved to New York City, where he performed and composed for several major ballet and modern dance companies. In 1978 he began a 23-year Professorship at Purchase College, State University of New York, resigning in 2002 in order to devote his life primarily to the piano and composing.

Devoted to the promotion of modern classical music (which he prefers to call “sound art”), Cameron-Wolfe has served as an administrator for several musical organizations: Friends of American Music (1974 to the present), the New Mexico Music Festival (1978-82), Music from Angel Fire (1984), The Charles Ives Center (1990-91), and as Executive Director of the American branch of CESAME: the Center for Soviet/American Musical Exchange (1989-93).

He now lives and teaches piano and composition in the mountains of northern New Mexico, writes music articles for Horse Fly, a monthly journal of politics and culture, and hosts a monthly three-hour “Sunday Morning [Un]Classics” radio show (dominated by 20th-century music).

His current projects include the recording and editing of two CDs – one of his own compositions, the other showcasing his unique piano repertoire of music by lesser-known 20th-century composers. Additionally, he has recently been engaged as Co-Editor of FULCRUM: an annual of poetry and aesthetics, and is currently preparing for an autumn 2008 concert tour, with dates already set in Oldenburg, Germany and Tampere, Finland.


A Measure of Love and Silence (2006)

– Tatyana Apraksina
(trans. by James Wesley Mantooth)


The measure of
My
Love’s weight
Is insatiable hunger
For silence

Without closeness
Without meeting

At the stern
As the steamer departs
The soul will withdraw and nod
Change into water

It is not mine not yours
It is no one’s

(-----)

As a yellow flake of rosin
Fallen to the stage
Told
In a violin’s voice

What it wanted
Why it lived

How it came
To be absolutely itself
No one nothing
For no one

A measure of love
And silence