Tremblay, George, 1911-1982

Composed 1949. First performance Hamburg, 1962, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Frederic Balazs conductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

George Amede Tremblay was born on January 14, 1911 in Ottawa, Canada. His early musical training came from his father who was organist and general music director at the Basilica in Ottawa. He began to improvise when he was only three-years old on a small portable reed organ. Eventually he mastered the art of improvisation, which was a skill that served him well throughout his life.

The Tremblay family moved to the United States in 1920, initially settling in Salt Lake City before moving to California in 1923, and then Los Angeles in 1925. Tremblay became an American citizen in 1939. In Los Angeles, Tremblay studied composition with David Patterson and Arnold Schoenberg, who had a decisive influence on Tremblays music. Using the twelve tone row in its simplest form, the chromatic scale, Tremblay established a definitive cycle that yielded two hundred eighty-eight related rows out of the original. He pursued this definitive cycle in his own works.

Tremblay devoted a large portion of time to his students. In 1965, he founded the School for the Discovery and Advancement of New Serial Techniques in Los Angeles. The school provided film and television composers with a center for consultation and for experimental studies. Tremblay suffered a series of illnesses: two heart attacks, cancer in 1971, and a serious liver ailment. These health problems had a significant impact on his teaching and creative schedules. George Tremblay died on July 14, 1982 in Tijuana, Mexico.