After his return to the United States in 1939, he spent some time in New York City, where he associated with other composers of new music, including Elliott Carter and Aaron Copland, two of the twentieth century's most distinguished composers (5). He then decided to leave the States and attempted to get a passport. But his activities as a self-described rabid radical and his Spanish experience were on record. His request was refused because he "was an 'undesirable' something or other. . . They said, 'You'll never get a passport again (6).'" He moved to Mexico City in 1940, where he still lives. He became a Mexican citizen in 1956. There he married Annette Stephens, an American painter. They were later divorced, and in 1972 he married Yoko Sugiura, a professor of archaeology (7).
His move to Mexico had come in the aftermath of the Cardenas regime, a liberal, progressive period in Mexican history (8). There he associated with other liberals, including the American poet George Oppen, who had fled the McCarthy witchhunts, and the painter Juan O'Gorman, who designed Nancarrow's house and decorated it with murals (9).
In 1949 he began his series of Studies for Player Piano, the body of work which brought him to the attention of contemporary music aficionados. The importance of Nancarrow's work is described by James Tenney:
- Twenty-first century historians will rank Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano with the most innovative works of Ives, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Webern, Varese, Partch, Cage, Xenakis . . . as the most significant works composed since 1900 . . . . They manifest an incredibly thorough investigation and creative realization of countless new possibilities in the areas of rhythm, tempo, texture, polyphonic perception, and form, all of which will provide exciting challenges to composers, theorists, and listeners (10).
- ___________________
- 5. Philip Carlsen, "The Player Piano Music of Conlon Nancarrow: An Analysis of Selected Studies," in
- I.S.A.M. Monographs: no. 26 (New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 1988), 2.
- 6. Gagne and Caras, Soundpieces, 284-287.
- 7. Charles Amirkhanian, "Conlon Nancarrow," Nancarrow, Studies, 34; Gagne and Caras, Soundpieces,
- 282.
- 8. Charles Amirkhanian, "Interview with Composer Conlon Nancarrow," Soundings, book
- 4 (Spring-Summer 1977): 18-19
- 9. Amirkhanian, "Colon Nancarrow," 34.
- 10. James Tenney, "General Introduction," Nancarrow, Studies, 1. According to Nicolas Slonimsky
- (Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians [New York: Schirmer
Books, 1992], 1,866). James Tenney (b. 1934) is a highly influential American
pianist, conductor, teacher, and composer and an authority on Charles Ives
and on Nancarrow.
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