Discipline: Music Composition

M. Joel Mandelbaum

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Sunnyside, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1968
M. Joel Mandelbaum is an American music composer and teacher, best known for his use of microtonal tuning (notably just intonation and 19 equal temperament and the 31 equal temperament). He wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation on microtonality in 1961. Mandelbaum became interested in microtonality after listening to a lecture by Paul Hindemith. He began a correspondence with Adriaan Fokker which led to a six-week stay in Haarlem in 1963, during which he composed music using Euler's genera under Fokker's tutelage He is married to stained glass artist Ellen Mandelbaum. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Indiana in Music Theory in 1961.

Studios

Chapman

M. Joel Mandelbaum worked in the Chapman studio.

Chapman Studio was funded by Mrs. Alice Woodrough Chapman in memory of her husband, composer George Alexander Chapman. Symmetrically massed, the building is stuccoed on the exterior with a natural, unpainted cement. Its unusual half-timbered ornament consists of slender, knotty spruce poles painted a dark green color. A central, peak-roofed entrance porch appears on the north side…

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