W. A. Mathieu


William Allaudin Mathieu is a composer, pianist, choir director, music teacher, and author. He began studying piano at the age of six, and began recording his music and compositions in the 1970s on his record label, Cold Mountain Music. Mathieu has composed and recorded solo piano works, chamber pieces, choral music, and song cycles, and he has written four books on music, music theory, and how to live a musical life.

Career

Mathieu studied jazz composition with William Russo from 1954 to 1958; Eurocentric music with Easley Blackwood from 1963 to 1967; Middle Eastern music with Nubian master musician Hamza El Din from 1971 to 2004, with whom he also collaborated; and raga with North Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath from 1973 to 1996. Mathieu's recordings reflect the integration of these and many other influences.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he spent several years as an arranger and composer for Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington orchestras. Kenton's album Standards in Silhouette consists entirely of Mathieu's arrangements and revealed the young Mathieu to be an adept manipulator of compositional materials.
He was one of the founders and the musical director for The Second City in Chicago, the first ongoing improvisational theater troupe in the United States, and was later the musical director for The Committee, an improv theater in San Francisco that was an offshoot of The Second City. In the 1970s, he was on the faculties of San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Mills College. In 1969, Mathieu founded the Sufi Choir in San Francisco among followers of Samuel L. Lewis, and he directed the choir until 1982.
Mathieu enjoys sharing his tuning expertise with others, including beginners — and especially those who are convinced they are tone-deaf. “Nobody is tone-deaf,” he claims. He has regularly trained his “Tone-Deaf Choirs” to sing in tune, often in public.
He now devotes himself to practice, performance, recording, composition, teaching, and writing from his home near Sebastopol, California.

Early life

Mathieu was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was Aron M. Mathieu, publisher and founder of Minicam in 1937, editor at Writer's Digest for three decades, and founder of the Writer's Market franchise. His mother was Rosella Feher Mathieu, noted authority on herbs, and author of Herb Grower's Complete Guide, one of the first books in the United States on growing and cooking with herbs.
In Cincinnati, Mathieu attended Kennedy-Silverton Elementary School and Walnut Hills High School. In Chicago, he attended University of Chicago, earning a BA degree.

Discography

Solo piano improvisations

  • Transparencies
  • Songs of Samsara
  • ''Narratives''

    Multitrack compositions

  • Streaming Wisdom/In the Wind
  • Second Nature
  • In the Wind
  • ''Streaming Wisdom''

    Piano compositions

  • Magic Clavier Book II – Seven Etudes in Modulating Modality Noam Lemish, piano
  • Magic Clavier Book I – Twelve Etudes in Extended Modality Noam Lemish, piano, and Seven Solo and Duo Improvisations Noam Lemish and W. A. Mathieu, piano
  • 5:4 – Compositions for Piano, Marilyn Morales, piano solo, "The Poet Variations" on a theme by Robert Schumann; Kirk Whipple & Marilyn Morales, piano duo, "Five Poems / Four Hands"; W. A. Mathieu & Kirk Whipple, piano duo, "Four Improvisations / Twenty Fingers"
  • Three Compositions for Piano
  • Lakes & Streams
  • Piano Celebration
  • Available Light
  • ''Listening to Evening''

    Instrumental compositions

  • Second String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet
  • First String Quartet, The Galax Quartet
  • Compositions for Guitar, Mobius Trio, with Justin Houchin "Six Ellipses for Four Guitars", and "Lattice Work

    Song cycles

  • Café Hafiz – Twenty-One Songs for Your Serious Entertainment, with Devi Mathieu, soprano
  • Antiphons Across Time / Flower of the Maiden – The Music of Hildegard von Bingen, with Trio Ephemeros
  • For All ~ six tracks on On Cold Mountain: Songs on Poems of Gary Snyder, with Karen Clark, contralto + Galax Quartet
  • The Indian Parrot
  • If the Sun Could Sing, with Trio Ephemeros
  • Rumi and Strings
  • ''Say I Am You - Four Song Cycles from the Poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi''

    Improvisational collaborations

  • Full Bloom – Trios for Piano and Percussion, with George Marsh and Jennifer Wilsey
  • The Bloom – Trios for Piano and Percussion, with George Marsh and Jennifer Wilsey
  • Centerpeace, 2010 collaboration with Andrew York
  • The Ghost Opera, with the Ghost Opera Company formed at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
  • Game/No Game with George Marsh
  • ''This Marriage''

    Collaborations

  • On Cold Mountain: Songs on Poems of Gary Snyder, Karen Clark, contralto + Galax Quartet

    Big Band jazz

  • With Stan Kenton: Standards In Silhouette,
  • With Duke Ellington: Piano in the Background,
  • Double Feature - Volume 2: The Stan Kenton Orchestra and The Nova Jazz Orchestra,
  • Concerto Nova & the Jazz Music of W. A. Mathieu, Nova Jazz Orchestra

    The Sufi Choir

  • The Best of the Sufi Choir
  • Remembrance
  • The Sufi Choir sings Robert Bly's versions of Kabir
  • Stone in the Sky
  • The Sufi Dance & Song Record
  • Cryin' for Joy
  • The Sufi Choir aka ''The Blue Album''

    Audio books

  • The Listening Book and The Musical Life – Audio Edition], 2-CD set