Conlon Nancarrow

Nancarrow composed some of the most rhythmically intricate music ever written, almost all of it for the player piano. Indeed, his music is so dense -- with multiple lines of counterpoint, contrasting tempi, and time signatures -- it's virtually inconceivable that it could be played by a single human pianist. Nancarrow did his work in isolation, away from the musical establishment, and was unrecognized for his achievements until very late in his long life. As a teenager, Nancarrow played trumpet in early jazz bands. He studied at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music from 1929-1932; while there, he heard a performance of Stravinsky's the Rite of Spring, which cemented his desire to become a composer. He moved to Boston in 1934, where he studied privately with Nicolas Slonimsky, Walter Piston, and Roger Sessions (according to his first wife, Helen Rigby, he also met Schoenberg after the latter had fled to this country following the Nazi takeover).

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