John Rahn

John Rahn (BA, Diploma, MFA, Ph.D) is Professor of Music Composition and Music Theory, and Professor of Critical Theory at the University of Washington.

After an early career as a professional bassoonist (from age 16), Rahn earned degrees in Classics (Pomona), Bassoon (Juilliard), and Composition (Princeton). He served as founding director of the UW School of Music Computer Center (SMCC) from 1988 to 1990, and created the year-long series of Computer Music Seminars, which he taught from 1983 to 1991.

In March 2001, he was invited to help hire the initial faculty for a new state-funded conservatory of music in Barcelona, Catalunya, called L'Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya (ESMUC). During 2003-2004, Rahn taught composition and theory there, and one of his students won the international Guinjoan Composition Prize. During this period he also gave several theory papers at conferences at IRCAM Paris, and served as First Reader for the Ph.D. dissertation of Moreno Andreatta in Paris.

His compositions have been widely performed and broadcast in North and South America and in Europe, from Argentina to Romania. Two computer-music compositions, Kali and Miranda, were released on Centaur CD CRC 2144. More recently, he composed a two-movement, 47-minute long computer-music symphony called Sea of Souls (Sea, City). Sea was selected by international jury for presentation at the 1994 International Computer Music Conference in Denmark. Rahn was invited to present the complete Sea of Souls and a 90-minute lecture on the composition at the Spanish national computer-music conference in Cuenca in October 1995. He finished a chamber opera called The New Mother in late 2000, and a set of pieces for solo oboe in 2001 (Hoboe), three of which were premiered in February 2001, and Greek Bones for two trombones in 2005.

As a theorist, he was actively involved in the formation of the Society for Music Theory, and has served on its Board. He served as Editor of Perspectives of New Music from 1983 to 1994, and again from 2000 to the present.

His publications include the textbook Basic Atonal Theory (MacMillan); the anthology Perspectives on Musical Aesthetics (Norton); a book in the “Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture” series of Gordon and Breach International, titled Music Inside Out (2001); and articles in Perspectives of New Music, Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, In Theory Only, Computer Music Journal, Contemporary Music Review, College Music Symposium, Musicus, Musikometrika, Cahiers de l'IRCAM, World of Music, and Current Musicology, as well as the proceedings of various American, Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Romanian conferences, on subjects including Brahms, non-tonal and serial theory, pitch-class theory, rhythmic theory, theory of tonal music and of medieval music, theoretical methodology and formal methods, mathematical models, musical grammars, computer analysis, digital sound synthesis, computer music, music and artificial intelligence, aesthetics, and critical theory.

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