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Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
As part of the post-Fluxus generation of independent artists, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz (b.1949) composes, performs, writes about, and advocates for nonpop. His work engages the advancement of arts and technology from humanist and experimental perspectives. Performed around the world, he has created more than 1200 works for orchestras, bands, sound sculptures, soloists, chamber groups, electronics, theater, opera, installations, dancers, interactive media, and performance events. He studied with eminent experimental composer Clarence Barlow.
Dr. Bathory-Kitsz directed the three Delaware Valley Festivals of the Avant-Garde and the two North Country Electronic Music Festivals. He co-founded the Trans/Media arts cooperative and the Vermont Composers Consortium. For his We Are All Mozart project, he completed 100 commissioned works in a single year. He composed and produced two operas, Plasm over ocean in 1977 and Erzsébet in 2011, and five symphonies. His essay on graphical scores appears in the book and exhibit Notations21, and his recent books include I Don't Get Classical Music, I Don't Get Music Technology, and Soiled Amplitudes: My Compositional and Notation Aesthetic. The ballet Send Me a Dream was mounted in 2018 and the political oratorio Goat Songs of the Regime of Monsters was presented in 2019. The 75th birthday series "Singing Noise Colors" was presented in 2023, offering nearly 70 of the composer's works in a weekend of concerts. His three dozen graphical scores include the prize-winning duo Water No Fire (premiered in New York City) and harp and percussion composition DEX II 3d (premiered in Reykjavík). He has designed and built numerous electronic and acoustic musical instruments. For twelve years, he was a professor of music theory, composition, and technology at Vermont State University.
Performers of his work have included the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, American Modern Ensemble, Coro Odyssea, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Duo Harpverk, Emerald Trio, Styx-Q VIP Positive String Quartet, U.S. Army Brass, Logos Robot Orchestra, Sage City Symphony, Triad, ThingNY, Michael Arnowitt, Michael Manion, Elizabeth Hilliard, Larry Polansky, Katie Buckley, and more than 100 additional ensembles and individuals. He is regularly heard at New York's Composers Concordance.
For more than ten years, Dr. Bathory-Kitsz and colleague David Gunn co-hosted Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar, a weekly radio and Internet show interviewing composers from around the world, presenting the world's first radio/Internet trans-Atlantic live nonpop concert from Amsterdam, and mounting the groundbreaking Ought-One Festival of NonPop, with 37 concerts in a single weekend. Kalvos & Damian won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award in 2000. His book topics also include theater, computer technology, hiking, and Country Stores of Vermont: A History and Guide.
Dr. Bathory-Kitsz's website is maltedmedia.com/bathory.