Erling Wold

Biography

Erling Wold (born January 30, 1958, in Burbank, California) is a San Francisco-based composer of opera and contemporary classical music. He is best known for his later chamber operas, and his early experiments as a microtonalist.

Life

Wold was born into a religious family, the son of Erling Henry Wold Sr, a Lutheran minister and Margaret Barth Wold, an author of inspirational books and plays. He was given piano lessons at an early age but showed little interest in music until his teen years, when he became infatuated, teaching himself to play a variety of instruments and embracing the music of many of the modernist composers. It was also at this point that he started to write music. He first studied composition at Occidental College with Robert Gross where he was awarded the Elinor Remick Warren Composition Award in 1978. Later teachers included Gerard Grisey, Andrew Imbrie and John Chowning at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, where he primarily studied computer music, gaining a facility with the mathematics of signal processing. While at Berkeley, he married Lynn Murdock, for whom he wrote a number of his early works. In 1985, they had a son, Duncan Renaldo Wold. He married the painter Lynne Rutter in 2010.
After earning his doctorate at Berkeley in 1987, he went to work for Yamaha Music Technologies, writing a number of patents in music synthesis and processing. During this period, most of his music was electronic, and he was an early advocate of the Synclavier. His work at this time with a number of San Francisco performance artists and dancers led to his continuing interest in theater. After leaving Yamaha in 1992, he cofounded Muscle Fish, an audio and music software company, later acquired by Audible Magic. By 1995 he had migrated back to writing instrumental music and wrote his first chamber opera based on Max Ernst's collage novel A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil, a critical and popular success which has been revived several times, including performances by the Paul Dresher Ensemble and by the Klagenfurter ensemble. The success of the production led to a residency at ODC Theater in San Francisco, where he premiered his opera Queer based on William S. Burroughs' early autobiographical novel of the same name in 2001 and Sub Pontio Pilato in 2003. There have been few purely musical works during this period, but some notable exceptions are Close, played by Relâche and others, the piano pieces Albrechts Fluegel, premiered by Finnish pianist Marja Mutru, and Veracity. He has had a close relationship with several theaters in Austria, where a number of his recent operas have been premiered, including Uksus, Rattensturm and Daphnes Garten.
Although he rejected the Christian religion in his teens, many of his operatic works deal with religious themes. A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil is a surrealistic dream of young girl about to enter a convent, Sub Pontio Pilato is an epic historical fantasy on the death and resurrection of Pontius Pilate, and Certitude and Joy tells the story of a young woman who kills her three children on orders from God. His Mass named for Notker the Stammerer, commissioned by the Cathedral of St Gall is a straightforward setting of the liturgy along with several Psalms.
His earliest music was atonal and arrhythmic, but the influences of just intonation and the music of the minimalists led to the bulk of his music being composed in a variety of tonal genres. He was attracted by the theater and much of his music is either directly dramatic or is based on dramatic rather than purely musical structures. Wold is an eclectic composer who has also been called "the Eric Satie of Berkeley surrealist/minimalist electro-art rock" by the Village Voice.
He composed the soundtracks for a number of films by the independent film director Jon Jost as well as Blake Eckard.
There are a number of CD and DVD releases of Wold's music. He has published artistic and technical articles in several publications, including the Leonardo Music Journal, IEEE MultiMedia, IEEE Signal Processing, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, SIGGRAPH, the Just Intonation Network Journal 1/1, IEEE Transactions on Computers and several books.
He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra.

Chamber opera

Daphnes Garten (2023) on the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, libretto by Katharina Tiwald.
Rattensturm (2018) on the sinking of the SMS Szent István, libretto by Peter Wagner.
Uksus (2012-2016) based on the writings of Daniil Kharms.
Certitude and Joy (2012) on the dangers and ecstasies of religious faith.
Mordake (2008) a solo opera for John Duykers on the story of Edward Mordake; libretto by Douglas Kearney.
Blinde Liebe (2005) an interactive dance opera on a true crime story
Sub Pontio Pilato (2003) an historical fantasy on Pontius Pilate with libretto by James Bisso
die Nacht wird kommen... (2002) a German language version of A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil
queer (2000, revised 2011) based on the novel by William S. Burroughs
A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil (1995, revised 2000) based on Max Ernst's collage novel

Dance

Trio (2004) a joint composition with Thom Blum for Deborah Slater Dance Theater
i brought my hips to the table (1998) text by Michelle Murphy
Abstaende (1995) dance by Palindrome Dance Company
Egg (1990) - dance by Gay White
Crash (1987)
Dance of the Testifiers (1987)
Dance of the Polygamists (1987)

Orchestra

Certitude and Joy (2011) commissioned and premiered by the Sofia Symphonic Orchestra
Brightness (2004) for clarinet and orchestra, premiered by Rachel Condry.

Choral

Missa Beati Notkeri Balbuli Sancti Galli Monachi (2006)

Chamber

walking along the embarcadero past pier 7 and the flowers (2011) for two pianos
Veracity (2001) for piano
Close (1997) for chamber ensemble
Albrechts Fluegel (1995) for piano
Seven Days Ago (1990)
It was in the summer that I first noticed your hair, your face, your eyelids (1988)

Film

Coyotes Kill For Fun (2017) film by Blake Eckard
Bubba Moon Face (2011) film by Blake Eckard
La Lunga Ombra (2005) film by Jon Jost
Homecoming (2004) film by Jon Jost
London Brief (1997) film by Jon Jost
The Bed You Sleep In (1993) film by Jon Jost
Sure Fire (1990) film by Jon Jost

Songs

Raheel (2003) text by Dima Hilal
Harvest of Rage (2000) songs for tenor and orchestra
13 Versions of Surrender (1996) text by Michelle Murphy
Center Mother and Boss Puss (1990) text by Antonin Artaud