Daniel Lentz

American composer, pianist/electronic musician and visual artist Daniel Lentz was born on March 10, 1942 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Associated with the post-minimalist movement and experimental music, he trained at Brigham Young University, Ohio State University and the University of Southern California, then taught at Arizona State University from 1970 to 1976, before moving to California. From the 1970s onwards, Lentz distinguished himself with works integrating live electronics, multi-track loops and visual devices, notably decorated and calligraphically handwritten scores that he conceived as plastic works. He founded and directed several ensembles to perform his music, including the Daniel Lentz Group, and collaborated with visual artists and choreographers. Significant early works include the EP After Images (1981) and the albums On the Leopard Altar (1984), Missa Umbrarum (1985) and The Crack in the Bell (1987). In 1993, he collaborated with Harold Budd and Ruben Garcia on Music for 3 Pianos, then with his wife Jessica Karraker and Budd again on Walk Into My Voice (American Beat Poetry ) (1996), readings of Beat Generation poems set to music. He then went on to work on new thematic solo albums, Apologetica (1998), Hut ou Neuf Pièces Dorées à Point (2000), Voices (2001) and Wolfmass (2002). He moved away from music production to nourish his sound and visual installation projects, before releasing the composition River of 1,000 Streams (2017) and conceiving with Ian William Craig the album FRKWYS Vol. 16: In a Word (2020). In 2024, the album Lips brings together earlier compositions, including the 1973 piece Song(s) fo the Sirens. On July 25, 2025, Daniel Lentz dies at the age of 83.

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