Richard Maxfield

Groundbreaking electronic composer Richard Maxfield was born in Seattle on February 2, 1927. According to the biographical entry located at www.virtulink.com/mela/main.htm, as a child he studied piano and later played clarinet in the Seattle All Youth Orchestra, even writing a symphony while still in high school. After a stint in the Navy, Maxfield spent a year at Stanford University, transferring to the University of California in 1947 to study under composer Roger Sessions. Upon graduating in 1951 he was awarded the Hertz Prize before travelling to Europe and befriending the likes of Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen; during a subsequent trip abroad, he also met Christian Wolff, John Cage, and David Tudor. After spending 1958 in New York studying under Cage at the New School, the following year Maxfield assumed Cage's teaching duties, tapping Lamonte Young as his assistant; instructing his students in the art of creating music from exclusively electronic sources, he is widely believed to be the first true teacher of electronic music in America.

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