Andrés Lewin-Richter
From Unearthing The Music
Andrés Lewin-Richter Ossiander (Miranda de Ebro, Burgos, 1937) is a Spanish industrial engineer and musical composer.
Biography
Lewin-Richter considered to be part of the so-called "intergenerational composers" group, a classification developed by Tomás Marco, to refer to authors born around 1940. In 1956, he began to promote contemporary music through a series of lectures given in Spain, the United States and Mexico. This guideline would be a constant throughout his professional career, dedicating himself progressively to electronic and electroacoustic music. Club 49, promoted by Joan Prats, was a stronghold of alternative artistic expression. In the 1960s, its cultural activity expanded towards music, and the objective there was to show all kinds of musical creation, regardless of its purpose, aesthetics or origin. This musical current would end up being called Open Music.
In 1962 Lewin-Richter obtained a Fulbright scholarship that allowed him to work for three years at the Columbia Princetown Electronic Music Center in New York, to study acoustics with Cyril Harris, and music produced with electroacoustic methods with Vladimir Ussachevsky, Mario Davidovsky and Edgar Varèse.
He is considered a pioneer of electroacoustic music in Spain, and upon going back to Barcelona in 1975, he founded with Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny and the Phonos Electroacoustic Music Studio (today simply known as Phonos) which whose first incarnation was in his house. He also participated in the creation of the Catalan Instrumental Group (GIC).
In his works he uses a great diversity of materials, techniques and languages to create a new sound universe in which electronic resources extend the timing possibilities of the instruments.
Work
Andrés Lewin-Richter's compositions are based, above all, on electroacoustic music, with an extensive catalog with works for solo instruments, for chamber groups, vocal music, dance, theater and audiovisual music.