The composer, pianist and music theorist Henry Cowell was one of the most important figures of the 20th-century American musical life. He is primarily known for his experimental compositional techniques, like the use of clusters, chords comprised of adjacent tones. He also experimented with a variety of techniques for directly playing the strings of the piano, which he dubbed ‘string piano’. Cowell described the innovate harmonic and rhythmic concepts that he used in his compositions in his book New Musical Resources, which influenced American avant-garde composers significantly for years.
Cowell also devoted himself to the music of these composers. He was the central figure in a circle of avant-garde composers known as the ‘ultra-modernists’. In 1925 Cowell founded the New Music Society, which was devoted to staging concert performances of the works of the ultra-modernists and similar composers. Three years later, the Pan-American Association of Composers was founded, which focused on the promotion of composers from around the western hemisphere.
From the 1940’s onwards, Cowell began to compose less radical works, with more traditional harmonies and simpler rhythms. Many of these later works are based on non-Western music or American folk music.