11 Facts About Colin McPhee

Colin Carhart McPhee was a Canadian-American composer and ethnomusicologist.

Colin McPhee is best known for being the first Western composer to make a musicological study of Bali, and to develop American gamelan along with fellow composer Lou Harrison.

Colin McPhee wrote original music influenced by that of Bali and Java, decades before compositions based on world music became widespread.

Colin McPhee's father, Alexander McPhee, was an advertising executive for Bell Telephone Company.

Once there Colin McPhee studied, filmed and wrote extensively about the culture and music of the gamelans, and in 1936 wrote an original musical score, Tabuh Tabuhan, in the Balinese style.

Colin McPhee was responsible for introducing Britten to the Balinese music that influenced such works by the British composer as The Prince of the Pagodas, Curlew River, and Death in Venice.

In 1947, Colin McPhee published a book A House in Bali, about Balinese culture and music during the 1930s.

Later in the decade, Colin McPhee fell into an alcohol-fueled depression, but began to write music again during the 1950s.

Colin McPhee became professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA in 1958 and was a respected jazz critic.

American composer Evan Ziporyn wrote an opera about Colin McPhee's life, titled A House in Bali.

Colin McPhee's posthumously published Music in Bali was the first comprehensive analysis of Balinese music published in English.