Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex, England, taking inspiration from minimalist painting. During his time on the art course at the Institute, he also gained experience in playing and making music through teaching sessions held in the adjacent music school.

He joined the band Roxy Music as their keyboards and synthesisers player in the early 1970s. Roxy Music's success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno soon tired of touring and also conflicts with lead singer Bryan Ferry.

Eno's solo music has explored more experimental musical styles and ambient music. It has also been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasising "theory over practice". He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences partially through collaborations with other musicians.

Eno has also worked as an influential music and album producer, by the end of the 1970s, Eno had worked with David Bowie on the seminal "Berlin Trilogy," helped popularise the American band Devo and the punk-influenced "No Wave" genre. He produced and performed on three albums by Talking Heads, including ''Remain in Light'' (1980); produced seven albums for U2, including ''The Joshua Tree'' (1987); and Eno has also worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, Grace Jones and Slowdive, among others.

Eno pursues multimedia ventures in parallel to his music career, including art installations, a newspaper column in ''The Observer'' and a regular column on society and innovation in ''Prospect'' magazine, and "Oblique Strategies" (written with Peter Schmidt), a deck of cards in which each card has a cryptic remark or random insight meant to resolve a dilemma. He continues to collaborate with other musicians, produce records, release his own music, and write.

Education and early musical career[link]

Roxy Music[link]

Brian Eno's professional music career began in London, as a member (1971–1973) of the glam/art rock band Roxy Music, initially not appearing on stage with them at live shows, but operating the mixing desk, processing the band's sound with a VCS3 synthesiser and tape recorders, and singing backing vocals. He then progressed to appearing on stage as a performing member of the group, usually flamboyantly costumed. He quit the band on completing the promotion tour for the band's second album, ''For Your Pleasure'' because of disagreements with lead singer Bryan Ferry and boredom with the rock star life.

In 1992, he described his Roxy Music tenure as important to his career: "As a result of going into a subway station and meeting Andy [saxophonist Andy Mackay], I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now". During his period with Roxy Music, and for his first three solo albums, he was credited on these records only as 'Eno'.

Solo work[link]

These four albums were remastered and reissued in 2004 by Virgin's Astralwerks label. Due to Eno's decision not to add any extra tracks of the original material, a handful of tracks originally issued as singles have not been reissued ("Seven Deadly Finns" and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" were included on the deleted Eno Vocal Box set and the single mix of "King's Lead Hat" [which is an anagram of "Talking Heads"] has never been reissued).

During this period, Eno also played three dates with Phil Manzanera in the band 801, a "supergroup" that performed more or less mutated selections from albums by Eno, Manzanera, and Quiet Sun, as well as covers of songs by The Beatles and The Kinks.

In 1972, Eno developed a tape-delay system first utilised by Eno and Robert Fripp (from King Crimson), described as 'Frippertronics', and the pair released an album in 1973 called ''(No Pussyfooting).'' It is said the technique was borrowed from minimalist composer Terry Riley, whose tape delay feedback system with a pair of Revox tape recorders (a setup Riley used to call the "Time Lag Accumulator") was first used on Riley's album ''Music for The Gift'' in 1963. In 1975, Fripp and Eno released a second album, ''Evening Star'', and played several live shows in Europe.

Eno's new methods of making sound into music called for new ways of notating his compositions. Like some 20th-century composers of "classical" music, he used graphic notation to represent what could not possibly be conveyed by conventional notes on a staff.

Eno was a prominent member of the performance art-classical orchestra the Portsmouth Sinfonia – having started playing with them in 1972. In 1973 he produced the orchestra's first album ''The Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the Popular Classics'' (released in March 1974) and in 1974 he produced the live album ''Hallellujah! The Portsmouth Sinfonia Live At The Royal Albert Hall'' of their infamous May 1974 concert (released in October 1974.) In addition to producing both albums, Eno performed in the orchestra on both recordings – playing the clarinet. Eno also deployed the orchestra's famously dissonant string section on his second solo album ''Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)''. The orchestra at this time included other musicians whose solo work he would subsequently release on his Obscure label including Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman. That year he also composed music for the album ''Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy'', with Kevin Ayers, to accompany the poet June Campbell Cramer.

Eno continued his career by producing a larger number of highly eclectic and increasingly ambient electronic and acoustic albums. He is widely credited with coining the term "ambient music", low-volume music designed to modify one's perception of a surrounding environment.

His first such work, 1975's ''Discreet Music'' (again created via an elaborate tape-delay methodology, which Eno diagrammed on the back cover of the LP ), is considered the landmark album of the genre. This was followed by his ''Ambient'' series (''Music for Airports (Ambient 1)'', ''The Plateaux of Mirror (Ambient 2)'', ''Day of Radiance (Ambient 3)'' and ''On Land (Ambient 4)''). Eno was the primary musician on these releases with the exception of ''Ambient 2'' which featured Harold Budd on keyboard, and ''Ambient 3'' where the American composer Laraaji was the sole musician playing the zither and hammered dulcimer with Eno producing.

In 1980 Eno provided a film score for Herbert Vesely's Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung, also known as ''Egon Schiele Excess and Punishment''. The ambient-style score was an unusual choice for a historical piece, but it worked effectively with the film's themes of sexual obsession and death.

In 1981, having returned from Ghana and before ''On Land'', he discovered Miles Davis' 1974 track "He Loved Him Madly", a melancholy tribute to Duke Ellington influenced by both African music and Karlheinz Stockhausen: as Eno stated in the liner notes for ''On Land'', "Teo Macero's revolutionary production on that piece seemed to me to have the "spacious" quality I was after, and like Federico Fellini's 1973 film ''Amarcord'', it too became a touchstone to which I returned frequently."

Eno describes himself as a "non-musician" and coined the term "treatments" to describe his modification of the sound of musical instruments, and to separate his role from that of the traditional instrumentalist. His skill at using "The Studio as a Compositional Tool" (the title of an essay by Eno) led in part to his career as a producer. His methods were recognised at the time (mid-1970s) as unique, so much so that on Genesis's ''The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'', he is credited with 'Enossification'; on Robert Wyatt's Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard with a ''Direct inject anti-jazz raygun'' and on John Cale's Island albums as simply being "Eno".

Obscure Records (label)[link]

Eno started the Obscure Records label in Britain in 1975 to release works by lesser-known composers. The first group of three releases included his own composition, ''Discreet Music'', and the now-famous ''The Sinking of the Titanic'' (1969) and ''Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet'' (1971) by Gavin Bryars. The second side of ''Discreet Music'' consisted of several versions of Pachelbel's Canon, the composition which Eno had previously chosen to precede Roxy Music's appearances on stage, to which various algorithmic transformations have been applied, rendering it almost unrecognisable. Side 1 consisted of a tape loop system for generating music from relatively sparse input. These tapes had previously been used as backgrounds in some of his collaborations with Fripp, most notably on ''Evening Star''. Only 10 albums were released on Obscure, including works by John Adams, Michael Nyman, and John Cage. At this time he was also affiliating with artists in the Fluxus movement.

Collaborations[link]

In 1980–1981, Eno collaborated with David Byrne of Talking Heads (which he had already anagrammatised as 'King's Lead Hat') on ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'', which was built around radio broadcasts Eno collected while living in the United States, along with sampling recordings from around the world transposed over music predominately inspired by African and Middle Eastern rhythms.

He worked with David Bowie as a writer and musician on Bowie's influential 1977–79 'Berlin Trilogy' of albums, ''Low, "Heroes"'' and ''Lodger'', on Bowie's later album ''Outside'', and on the song "I'm Afraid of Americans". In 1980 Eno developed an interest in altered guitar tunings, which led to Guitarchitecture discussions with Chuck Hammer, former Lou Reed guitarist. Following on from his No-Wave involvement which brought him in contact with the "renegade" artist Greg Belcastro, who introduced him to the guitar techniques of a fledgling Sonic Youth, Eno has also collaborated with John Cale, former member of Velvet Underground, on his trilogy ''Fear'', ''Slow Dazzle'' and ''Helen of Troy'', Robert Wyatt on his ''Shleep'' CD, with Jon Hassell, with the German duo Cluster, with composers Harold Budd, Philip Glass and Roberto Carnevale. A new collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno titled ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'' was released digitally on 18 August 2008, with the enhanced CD released in October.

1990s[link]

During the 1990s, Eno became increasingly interested in self-generating musical systems, the results of which he called generative music. The basic premise of generative music is the blending of several independent musical tracks, of varying sounds, length, and in some cases, silence. When each individual track concludes, it starts again mixing with the other tracks allowing the listener to hear an almost infinite combination. In one instance of generative music, Eno calculated that it would take almost 10,000 years to hear the entire possibilities of one individual piece. Eno has presented this music in his own, and other artists', art and sound installations, most notably "I Dormienti (The Sleepers)", Lightness: Music for the Marble Palace, Music for Civic Recovery Centre, The Quiet Room and "Music for Prague".

2000s[link]

Eno returned in June 2005 with ''Another Day on Earth'', his first major album since ''Wrong Way Up'' (with John Cale) to prominently feature vocals (a trend continued with ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today''). The album differs from his 1970s solo work as musical production has changed since then, evident in its semi-electronic production.

In early 2006, Eno collaborated with David Byrne, again, for the reissue of ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'' in celebration of the influential album's 25th anniversary. Eight previously unreleased tracks, recorded during the initial sessions in 1980/81, were added to the album, while one track, "Qu'ran", was removed in accordance with requests from Muslims. An unusual interactive marketing strategy coincided with its re-release, the album’s promotional website features the ability for anyone to officially and legally download the multi-tracks of two songs from the album, "A Secret Life" and "Help Me Somebody". Individuals can then remix and upload new mixes of these tracks to the website so others can listen to and rate them.

In late 2006, Eno released ''77 Million Paintings'', a program of generative video and music specifically for the PC. As its title suggests, there is a possible combination of 77 million paintings where the viewer will see different combinations of video slides prepared by Eno each time the program is launched. Likewise, the accompanying music is generated by the program so that it's almost certain the listener will never quite hear the same arrangement twice. The second edition of "77 Million Paintings" featuring improved morphing and a further two layers of sound was released on 14 January 2008. In June 2007, when commissioned in the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts in San Francisco, California, Annabeth Robinson (AngryBeth Shortbread) recreated ''77 Million Paintings'' in Second Life.

In 2007, Eno's music was featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling collection ''Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance''. He also appeared playing keyboards in ''Voila'', Belinda Carlisle's solo album sung entirely in French.

Also in 2007, Eno contributed a composition titled "Grafton Street" to Dido's third album, ''Safe Trip Home'', released in November 2008.

In 2008, he released ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'' with David Byrne, designed the sound for the video game ''Spore'' and wrote a chapter to ''Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture'', edited by Paul D. Miller (a.k.a. DJ Spooky).

Eno revealed on radio in May 2009 that a skin graft he received as treatment for a severe burn on his arm was part human skin, part carbon fibre. He explained that as human skin is based on carbon, the experimental treatment was likely going to work out well for him, in spite of the fact that he feels a lightness in the affected arm.

In June 2009, Eno curated the Luminous Festival at Sydney Opera House, culminating in his first live appearance in many years. "Pure Scenius" consisted of three live improvised performances on the same day, featuring Eno, Australian improv trio The Necks, Karl Hyde from Underworld, electronic artist Jon Hopkins and guitarist Leo Abrahams.

Eno scored the music for Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of ''The Lovely Bones'', released in December 2009.

2010s[link]

Eno released a new solo album on Warp Records in late 2010. ''Small Craft on a Milk Sea'', made in association with long-time collaborator Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins, was released on 2 November in the United States and 15 November in the UK. Eno also sang backing vocals on Anna Calvi's debut album on two songs "Desire" and "Suzanne & I".

He later released ''Drums Between The Bells'', a collaboration with poet Rick Holland, on 4 July 2011, and the EP ''Panic Of Looking'' from the same recordings.

Record producer and other projects[link]

Record production[link]

Despite being a self-professed "non-musician", Eno has contributed to recordings by artists as varied as Nico, Robert Calvert, Genesis, David Bowie, and Zvuki Mu, in various capacities such as use of his studio/synthesiser/electronic treatments, vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and as just being 'Eno'. In 1984, he (along with several other authors) composed and performed the "Prophecy Theme" for the David Lynch film ''Dune''; the rest of the soundtrack was composed and performed by the group Toto. Eno produced performance artist Laurie Anderson's ''Bright Red'' album, and also composed for it. The work is avant-garde spoken word with haunting and magnifying sounds. Eno played on David Byrne's musical score for ''The Catherine Wheel'', a project commissioned by Twyla Tharp to accompany her Broadway dance project of the same name.

Eno co-produced ''The Unforgettable Fire'' (1984), ''The Joshua Tree'' (1987), ''Achtung Baby'' (1991), and ''All That You Can't Leave Behind'' (2000) for U2 with his frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois, and produced 1993's ''Zooropa'' with Mark "Flood" Ellis. In 1995, U2 and Eno joined forces to create the album ''Original Soundtracks 1'' under the group name Passengers; songs from ''OST1'' included "Your Blue Room" and "Miss Sarajevo". He also produced ''Laid'' (1993), ''Wah Wah'' (1994) and ''Pleased to Meet You'' (2001) for James.

Eno played on the 1986 album ''Measure for Measure'' by Australian band Icehouse. He remixed two tracks for Depeche Mode, "I Feel You" and "In Your Room", both single releases from the album ''Songs of Faith and Devotion'' in 1993. In 1995, Eno provided one of several remixes of "Protection" by Massive Attack (originally from their ''Protection'' album) for release as a single. The single also included more remixes by DJs J-Swift, Tom D, and Underdog.

In 2007, he produced the fourth studio album by Coldplay entitled ''Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends'', which was released in 2008. Also in 2008, he worked with Grace Jones on her album ''Hurricane'', credited for "production consultation" and as a member of the band, playing keyboards, treatments and background vocals. With frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois, he worked on the twelfth studio album by U2, titled ''No Line on the Horizon''. It was recorded in Morocco, South France and Dublin and released in Europe on 27 February 2009.

In 2011, Eno and Coldplay reunited and produced Coldplay's fifth studio album ''Mylo Xyloto'', released on 24 October of that year.

The Microsoft Sound[link]

Eno stated, during Episode 1 Series 2 of BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity, that he created The Microsoft Sound using an Apple Mac computer.

Generative music[link]

As C.S.J. Bofop, in 1996, he said:

Other work[link]

Eno appeared as Father Brian Eno at the "It's Great Being a Priest!" convention, in "Going to America", the final episode of the television sitcom ''Father Ted'', which originally aired on 1 May 1998 on Channel 4.

In March 2008 Eno collaborated with the Italian artist Mimmo Paladino on a show of the latter's works with Eno's soundscapes at Ara Pacis in Rome.

In 2008, Eno designed the procedurally-generated music for the video game ''Spore''.

In October 2008, Eno collaborated with Peter Chilvers to create an application titled Bloom, Trope, and Air for the iOS platform.

Eno was the guest curator of the 2009 Sydney Festival and the 2010 Brighton Festival.

Lizard Point from ''On Land'' is featured in the 2010 film ''Shutter Island''. The Song "An Ending" was also featured secretly in the 2011 feature film ''Drive'' during an elevator scene involving ''Ryan Gosling''.

Influence[link]

While not the only inventor of ambient music, Eno is seen as a major contributor to the genre. The Ambient Music Guide argues that he has brought from "relative obscurity into the popular consciousness" fundamental ideas about ambient music, including "the idea of modern music as subtle atmosphere, as chill-out, as impressionistic, as something that creates space for quiet reflection or relaxation." His groundbreaking work in electronic music has been said to have brought widespread attention to and innovations in the role of electronic technology in recording.

In 2001 Half Man Half Biscuit released an EP entitled "Eno Collaboration", which contains a track of the same name.

MGMT wrote a song about Eno, called "Brian Eno", in their 2010 album ''Congratulations''.

In 2011, Belgian academics from the Royal Museum for Central Africa named a species of Afrotropical spider ''Pseudocorinna brianeno'' in his honour.

Politics[link]

In 1996, Eno and others started the Long Now Foundation to educate the public about the very long term future of society. He is also a columnist for the British newspaper ''The Observer''.

In 2003, he appeared on a UK Channel 4 discussion about the Iraq war with a top military spokesman; Eno was highly critical of the war. In 2005, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration in Hyde Park, London. In March 2006, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration at Trafalgar Square; he noted that 2 billion people on this planet do not have clean drinking water, and that water could have been supplied to them for about one-fifth of the cost of the Iraq war.

The Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition mobile phone features exclusive music composed by Eno. Between 8 January 2007 and 12 February 2007, ten units of Nokia 8800 Sirocco Brian Eno Signature Edition mobile phones, individually numbered and engraved with Eno's signature were auctioned off. All proceeds went to two charities chosen by Eno: the Keiskamma Aids Treatment program and The World Land Trust.

In 2006, Eno was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter calling for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions.

In December 2007, the newly-elected Leader of Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, appointed Eno as his youth affairs adviser.

In January 2009, Eno spoke out against Israel's military action on the Gaza Strip by writing an opinion for ''CounterPunch'' and participating in a large-scale protest in London.

Discography[link]

Bibliography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Category:1948 births Category:Ambient musicians Category:Aphorists Category:Astralwerks artists Category:Virgin Records artists Category:Brit Award winners Category:British anti–Iraq War activists Category:English electronic musicians Category:English experimental musicians Category:English painters Category:English record producers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Living people Category:New Age musicians Category:People from Woodbridge, Suffolk Category:Roxy Music members Category:Warp Records artists Category:People educated at St Joseph's College, Ipswich Category:English atheists Category:All Saints Records artists Category:E.G. Records artists

Biography[link]

He graduated from Lansdowne High School in southwest Baltimore County. Byrne started his musical career in a high school duo named Bizadi with Mark Kehoe. Their repertoire consisted mostly of songs such as "April Showers," "96 Tears," "Dancing On The Ceiling," and Frank Sinatra songs. Byrne then attended the Rhode Island School of Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art before dropping out and forming a band called "The Artistics" with fellow RISD student Chris Frantz. The band dissolved within a year, and the two moved to New York together with Frantz's girlfriend Tina Weymouth. Unable to find a bass player in New York, Frantz and Byrne persuaded Weymouth to learn to play the bass guitar. She admits that the encouragement she received from Byrne, Frantz, and famed trumpet player Don Cherry (who lived in their building), was critical to her grasp of the instrument.

After some practice and playing together they founded the group Talking Heads which had its first gig in 1975. Multi-instrumentalist Jerry Harrison joined the group in 1977. During his time in the band, Byrne took on outside projects, collaborating with Brian Eno in 1981 on the album ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'', which attracted considerable critical acclaim due to its early use of analogue sampling and found sounds.

While working on the film ''True Stories'', Byrne met costume designer Adelle Lutz whom he married in 1987. They have a daughter, Malu Abeni Valentine Byrne, born in 1989. Byrne and Lutz divorced in 2004. Byrne began a relationship with the artist Cindy Sherman in 2007.

Although a resident of the United States since childhood, Byrne is a British citizen, and has never applied for U.S. citizenship. He lives in New York City.

Work in music and film[link]

In 1981, Byrne partnered with choreographer Twyla Tharp, scoring music he wrote that appeared on his album, ''The Catherine Wheel'' for a ballet with the same name, prominently featuring unusual rhythms and lyrics. Productions of ''The Catherine Wheel'' appeared on Broadway that same year. ''In Spite of Wishing and Wanting'' is a soundscape David Byrne produced for the Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus's dance company Ultima Vez.

His work has been extensively used in movie soundtracks, most notably in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su on Bernardo Bertolucci's ''The Last Emperor'', which won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. In 2004, ''Lead Us Not Into Temptation (music from the film "Young Adam")'' included tracks and musical experiments from his score to ''Young Adam''. Byrne also wrote, directed, and starred in ''True Stories'', a musical collage of discordant Americana released in 1986, as well as producing most of the film's music. Byrne also directed the documentary ''Île Aiye'' and the concert film of his 1992 Latin-tinged tour titled ''Between the Teeth''. He was chiefly responsible for the stage design and choreography of ''Stop Making Sense'' in 1984. Byrne added "Loco de Amor" (Crazy for Love) with Celia Cruz to Jonathan Demme's 1986 film ''Something Wild''.

Byrne wrote the Dirty Dozen Brass Band-inspired score for Robert Wilson's Opera ''The Knee Plays'' from ''The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down''. Some of the music from Byrne's orchestral album ''The Forest'' was originally used in a Wilson-directed theatre piece with the same name. ''The Forest'' premiered at the Theater der Freien Volksbühne, Berlin in 1988. It received its New York premiere in December 1988 at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Forestry Maxi-single contained dance and industrial remixes of pieces from ''The Forest'' by Jack Dangers, Rudy Tambala, and Anthony Capel.

Byrne has contributed songs to five AIDS benefit compilation albums produced by the Red Hot Organization: ''Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter'', ''Red Hot + Rio'', ''Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin'', ''Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon'', and ''Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip''. Byrne appeared as a guest vocalist/guitarist for 10,000 Maniacs during their ''MTV Unplugged'' concert, though the songs in which he is featured were cut from their following album. One of them, "Let the Mystery Be", appeared as the fourth track on 10,000 Maniacs' CD single "Few and Far Between". Byrne worked with the "Queen of Tex-Mex", Tejano superstar Selena, writing, producing and singing a song ("God's Child (Baila Conmigo)"), included on Selena's last album, "Dreaming of You", before her death. Byrne was the host of ''Sessions at West 54th'' during its second of three seasons and collaborated with members of Devo and Morcheeba to record the album ''Feelings'' in 1997.

In 2008 Byrne collaborated with The Brighton Port Authority, composing the music and singing the lyrics for "Toe Jam".

In May 2011 Byrne contributed backing vocals to the Arcade Fire track "Speaking in Tongues" which appeared on the 2011 edition of their album ''The Suburbs''.

Byrne and Brian Eno provided the soundtrack for the film ''Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps''.

Other work[link]

Byrne is also a visual artist whose work has been shown in contemporary art galleries and museums around the world since the 1990s. Represented by the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York, he has also created public art installations, many of them anonymously. In 2010 his original art work is due to be featured in the exhibition ''The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl'' at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Cycling[link]

He says that he cycled when he was in high school and returned to it as an adult in the late 1970s. He likes the freedom and exhilarating feeling cycling gives him. He has written widely on cycling, including a 2009 book, ''Bicycle Diaries''. In August 2009, he auctioned his Montague folding bike in order to raise money for the London Cycling Campaign.

In 2008, Byrne designed a series of bicycle parking racks in the form of image outlines corresponding to the areas in which they were located, such as a dollar sign for Wall Street and an electric guitar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Byrne worked with a manufacturer that would construct the racks in exchange for the chance to sell them later as artworks, and the racks remained on the streets for about a year.

Musical activity since 2001[link]

In April 2003, Byrne appeared as himself in an episode of ''The Simpsons'', "Dude, Where's My Ranch?". Later in the year, Byrne released the book ''Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information'' (ISBN 3-88243-907-6). together with a companion DVD. The work included artwork composed entirely in Microsoft PowerPoint. It includes one image that depicts, according to Byrne, "Dan Rather's profile. Expanded to the nth degree. Taken to infinity. Overlaid on the back of Patrick Stewart's head."

Byrne's solo album, ''Grown Backwards'', was released on March 16, 2004 by Nonesuch Records. This album used orchestral string arrangements, and includes two operatic arias. He also launched a North American and Australian tour with the Tosca Strings. This tour ended with Los Angeles, San Diego and New York shows in August 2005. The following year, his singing was featured on "The Heart's a Lonely Hunter" on ''The Cosmic Game'' by Thievery Corporation.

In 2005, Byrne initiated his own internet radio station, Radio David Byrne. Each month, Byrne posts a playlist of music he likes, linked by themes or genres. Byrne's playlists have included African popular music, country music classics, Vox Humana, classical opera, and film scores from Italian movies. Byrne also posts personal comments on the music and, occasionally, on the state of the recorded music industry. In July 2007, Byrne posted the following comment: }}

Returning to this work in the theatre, in late 2005 Byrne and Fatboy Slim began work on ''Here Lies Love'', a disco opera or song cycle about the life of Imelda Marcos, the controversial former First Lady of the Philippines. Some music from this piece was debuted at Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia in February 2006 and the following year at Carnegie Hall on February 3, 2007.

Byrne and Eno's influential 1981 album ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'' was re-released for its 25th anniversary in early 2006, with new bonus tracks. In keeping with the spirit of the original album, two of the songs' component tracks were released under Creative Commons licenses and a remix contest site was launched. Later that same year, Byrne released ''Arboretum'', a sketchbook facsimile of his Tree Drawings, published by McSweeney's. He also had an exhibition of his chairs — drawings, photographs, sculptures, and embroideries — at Pace/MacGill Gallery, NYC. In 2007, David Byrne provided a cover of The Fiery Furnaces' song "Ex-Guru" for a compilation to celebrate the 15th birthday of Thrill Jockey, a Chicago-based label.

In April 2008, Byrne took part in the Paul Simon retrospective concert series at BAM performing "You Can Call Me Al" and "I Know What I Know" from Simon's ''Graceland'' album. In 2008, Byrne and his production team programmed the Battery Maritime Building, a 99-year-old ferry terminal in Manhattan, to play music. Essentially Byrne took the old New York City building, hooked the entire structure - pipes, heaters, pillars and all, electronically to an old pipe organ, and made a playable musical instrument of it, for a piece called "Playing the Building". This project was also installed in 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden, and at the London Roundhouse in 2009. It bears similarities to a series of installations performed by New Zealand and Detroit based artists Alastair Galbraith and Matt De Genaro, recorded on their 1998 record ''Wire Music'' and 2006 follow-up ''Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 2''. Byrne says that the point in this project was to allow people to experience art first hand, by creating the music with the organ, rather than simply looking at it. Byrne and Eno reunited for 2008's ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'' and Byrne assembled a band to tour the album and other collaborations between the two through late 2008. He assembled a band to tour worldwide for the album for a six-month period from late 2008 through early 2009 on the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour. The day after that album was released, ''Big Love: Hymnal'' - his soundtrack to season two of ''Big Love'' was made available. These two albums constituted the first releases on his personal independent record label Todo Mundo. In the same year, Byrne performed at the Austin City Limits festival.

He is featured on the tracks "Money" and "The People Tree", on N.A.S.A.'s 2009 album ''The Spirit of Apollo''. Also in 2009, David Byrne appeared on HIV/AIDS charity album ''Dark Was the Night'' for Red Hot Organization. He collaborated with Dirty Projectors on the song "Knotty Pine". In the same year, Byrne performed at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. He also was a signator of a letter protesting the decision of the Toronto International Film Festival to choose Tel Aviv as the subject of its inaugural City-to-City Spotlight strand.

In 2010, David Byrne songs were featured on the soundtrack of Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Works by David Byrne[link]

Selected discography[link]

Books[link]

Film[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:Scottish expatriates in the United States Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:Musicians from Maryland Category:People from Baltimore County, Maryland Category:People from Dumbarton Category:Musicians from New York City Category:Rhode Island School of Design alumni Category:Scottish bloggers Category:Scottish buskers Category:Scottish male singers Category:Scottish rock singers Category:Scottish songwriters Category:British emigrants to the United States Category:Talking Heads members Category:Luaka Bop artists Category:E.G. Records artists

, born , is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period (1868–1912). He is best known for his novels ''Kokoro'', ''Botchan'', ''I Am a Cat'' and his unfinished work ''Light and Darkness''. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note.

Early years[link]

Natsume attended the First Tokyo Middle School (now Hibiya High School), where he became enamored with Chinese literature, and fancied that he might someday become a writer. His desire to become an author arose when he was about fifteen when he told his older brother about his interest in literature. However, his family disapproved strongly of this course of action, and when Natsume entered the Tokyo Imperial University in September 1884, it was with the intention of becoming an architect. Although he preferred Chinese classics, he began studying English at that time, feeling that it might prove useful to him in his future career, as English was a necessity in Japanese college.

In 1887, Natsume met Masaoka Shiki, a friend who would give him encouragement on the path to becoming a writer, which would ultimately be his career. Shiki tutored him in the art of composing haiku. From this point on, he began signing his poems with the name Sōseki, which is a Chinese idiom meaning "stubborn". In 1890, he entered the English Literature department, and quickly mastered the English language. Natsume graduated in 1893, and enrolled for some time as a graduate student and part-time teacher at the Tokyo Normal School.

In 1895, Natsume began teaching at Matsuyama Middle School in Shikoku, which became the setting of his novel ''Botchan''. Along with fulfilling his teaching duties, Natsume published haiku and Chinese poetry in a number of newspapers and periodicals. He resigned his post in 1896, and began teaching at the Fifth High School in Kumamoto. On June 10 of that year, he married Nakane Kyoko.

In the United Kingdom, 1901–1903[link]

He lived in four different lodgings, only the last of which, lodging with Priscilla and her sister Elizabeth Leale in Clapham (see the photograph), proved satisfactory. Five years later, in his preface to ''Bungakuron'' (''The Criticism of Literature''), he wrote about the period: :The two years I spent in London were the most unpleasant years in my life. Among English gentlemen I lived in misery, like a poor dog that had strayed among a pack of wolves.

He got along well with the one Leale sister, who shared his love of literature (notably Shakespeare—his tutor at UCL was the Shakespeare scholar W. J. Craig—and Milton) and spoke fluent French, much to his admiration. The Leales were a Channel Island family, and Priscilla had been born in France. The sisters worried about Natsume's incipient paranoia and successfully urged him to get out more and take up cycling.

Despite his poverty, loneliness, and mental problems, he solidified his knowledge of English literature during this period and returned to Japan in 1903.

After his return to the Empire of Japan, he replaced Koizumi Yakumo (Lafcadio Hearn) at the First Higher School, and subsequently became a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, where he taught literary theory and literary criticism.

Literary career[link]

He followed on this success with short stories, such as ''Rondon tō'' ("Tower of London") in 1905 and the novels ''Botchan'' ("Little Master"), and ''Kusamakura'' ("Grass Pillow") in 1906, which established his reputation, and which enabled him to leave his post at the university for a position with ''Asahi Shimbun'' in 1907, and to begin writing full-time. Much of his work deals with the relation between Japanese culture and Western culture. Especially his early works are influenced by his studies in London; his novel ''Kairo-kō'' was the earliest and only major prose treatment of the Arthurian legend in Japanese. He began writing one novel a year until his death from a stomach ulcer in 1916.

Major themes in Natsume's works include ordinary people fighting against economic hardship, the conflict between duty and desire (a traditional Japanese theme; see giri), loyalty and group mentality versus freedom and individuality, personal isolation and estrangement, the rapid industrialization of Japan and its social consequences, contempt of Japan's aping of Western culture, and a pessimistic view of human nature. Natsume took a strong interest in the writers of the ''Shirakaba'' (White Birch) literary group. In his final years, authors such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Kume Masao became close followers of his literary style.

Major works[link]

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Category:1867 births Category:1916 deaths Category:People from Shinjuku, Tokyo Category:Writers from Tokyo Category:People in Meiji period Japan Category:Japanese novelists Category:Japanese poets Category:Japanese short story writers Category:Japanese expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:University of Tokyo alumni Category:Pseudonymous writers Category:Deaths from ulcers