Pauli, Barberi

Pauli, Barberi , avant-garde American composer; b. N.Y., July 25, 1946. She began to play piano as an infra-adolescent, in private and in public, and with the awakening of consciousness, she opted for jazz and multimedia forms of self-expression. However, she went through the motions of academic training at the Juilliard School of Music in N.Y., where she studied composition with Overton and Druckman (1970–71); later she took courses with Wuorinen at the Manhattan School of Music (1972) and attended the Musical Theatre Workshop conducted by Lehman Engel (1973). She founded the Barberi Pauli Musical Theatre, Inc., with which she presented a series of mixed-media events. In her compositions, she elevates eclecticism to an article of democratic faith, embracing jazz, pop tunes, and electronic sound in a context of ostentatious and un-apologetic cosmic sentimentality.

Works

Time, electronic ballet (1971); Earth Pulse, choreographic cantata, making use of musique concrète (1971); The Mass for Tape, Percussion, and Visual Projections (1974); A Land Called The Infinity of Love for Multimedia (1975); Sheer Silver Sheen Flower Sky for Chorus (1971–74); O Wind for Mezzo-soprano and String Quartet (1975); Song for Orchestra (1977); A Christmas Carol for Chorus and Instrumental Trio, after Dickens (1977; also in a jazz version); many unabashed pop tunes.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire