Select COMPOSITONS

Dick Higgins, "Lavender Blue for Alison," 1962 as it appears in Jefferson's Birthday 

Dick Higgins, "Lavender Blue for Alison," 1962 as it appears in Jefferson's Birthday 

Dick Higgins, "Lavender Blue for Alison," 1962 as it appears in Jefferson's Birthday 

Dick Higgins, "Piano Album, Short Piano Pieces, 1962-1984," Printed Editions, 1980. 

Folio of 13 music scores: Sophokles I, Gesti, Long Arch, Suggested by Small Swallows, Clouds, Six Imitations for Piano and Pianist, Sparks for Piano, Touch #1 for Piano, Sophokles II, Touch #2 for Piano,Haydn in the Forest,Litany Piano Pieces, Piano Sonata #1

"Haydn in the Forest for Hannah and Jessie" from "Piano Album"

"Clouds for Piano for Geoffrey Hendricks, Cloudsmith," from "Piano Album"

"Sparks for Piano" from "Piano Album"

Dick Higgins, "Printing Songs (all of em for Alison too)" 1965. 

#1: Choose some ink, some materials and some silk screens. Using them. 

#2: Choosing some ink, some materials, and some silk screens. Using them wisely. 

#3: Ink. Emulsions. Maybe acetates. Maybe gloves.

#4: Choosing eight inks. Putting them away and ignoring them deliberately. 

#5: Choosing eight inks. Choosing eight silk screens. Choosi

Dick Higgins, Graphis #143 & #144 (Softly for Orchestra and Wipeout), 1967

"Graphis #143 (Softly for Orchestra) and #144 (Wipeout for Orchestra) came along more or less together. In July 1967, as a stage toward making another work, I held up a transparent positive of a sheet of music paper I had been working on, and noticed, once again, how whatever was behind it could be treated as musical notatio

Dick Higgins, Emmett Williams' Ear (L'Orecchio di Emmett Williams) 1977. 

Offset lithograph on commercial music paper, with ink on paper cover

Dick Higgins, "Suggested by Small Swallows (for Ken & Sherry Dorn)," Dorn Productions, 1973

“Last week the twins came running in from the field, shouting, “Papa! Papa! Look how many birds! What ar they doing?” It was a huge swarm of small birds, English Sparrows maybe? Bunching together to fly south for the winter. Bunches burst here, bunches burst there. I had sort of forgotten about the birds, a

Dick Higgins, "Twenty-Six Mountains for Viewing the Sunset From," Printed Editions, 1981

Twenty-Six Mountains for Viewing the Sunset From (1981) is for a small      

ensemble, including three dancers. It is a different kind of notation, not using photographs but using an indication of what kinds of tex- tures and patterns are desired. The title comes from a trip I took late one night with a tee

"The twenty fifth mountain was truck by lightning many times last years and it hatched" 1500" (25 Minutes) 

Score from Twenty-Six Mountains for Viewing the Sunset From

Dick Higgins, "Ten Ways of Looking at a Bird for Violin and Harpsichord," Printed Editions, 1981

[The title of] Ten Ways of Looking at a Bird (1981)...is a playful variation on the name of a poem by Wallace Stevens whose work I have always admired, though, goodness knows, there is no modern poet more different from myself. This is a piece for violin and harpsichord; the harpsichord part is develope

Dick Higgins, "Piano Sonata #2 (Graphis #192)," Printed Editions, 1982

Dick Higgins, "Sonata for Prepared Piano," Printed Editions, 1982

Sonata for Prepared Piano (1982) is a short work which, again, uses photoderivations as parts of the notation—this time nature with incomplete figure photographs, mostly obscured by the natural objects around them. 

(Dick Higgins, "The Strategy of Each of My Books" from Horizons, 1984)

Dick Higgins, "Variations on a Natural Theme for Orchestra," Printed Editions, 1982

Variations on a Natural Theme (1982) is a large orchestral work, in some ways a companion to the Ten Ways, since this time it uses gamuts (in this case selected by the individual musicians) and photo derivations made from a female model; she was insistent that she not be recognizable, since she was a teacher and was

Dick Higgins, "Song for any Voice(s) and Instrument(s) (Graphis 192b)," Printed Editions, 1983

Dick Higgins, "Trumpets & Trees," Exempla, Firenze & Exit, Lugo, 1993. 

Envelope with  twelve silkscreen scores  and four pages of instructions. Edition of 150. From composer's notes:
“The twelve pages of notation are used as precisely as possible, according to any predetermined system: each trumpeter works up his own system. The system should determine speed of performance, volume, pitches, possi