Luening, Otto (1900–1996)

US composer. He studied in Munich, Germany, and in Zürich, Switzerland, with Philipp Jarnach, and privately with Ferruccio Busoni. He was appointed to Columbia University in 1949, and in 1951 began a series of pioneering compositions for instruments and tape, some in partnership with Vladimir Ussachevsky (Incantation, 1952; A Poem in Cycles and Bells, 1954). In 1959 he became codirector, with Milton Babbitt and Ussachevsky, of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. He taught at the Juilliard School, New York, 1971–73.

Works Opera Evangeline (1928–33, produced New York, 1948).

Orchestral flute concertino (1923), Symphonic Fantasias I–IX (1924–88), Kentucky Concerto (1951), Wisconsin Symphony (1975), Potawatomi Legends for chamber orchestra (1980).

Chamber three string quartets (1919–28), many chamber suites and sonatas for violin, flute, and cello, Green Mountain Evening for six instruments (1988).

Electronic Rhapsodic Variations, with Ussachevsky (1954).