Allen Strange

To anyone who is still reading this post. The Family of Allen Strange will be hosting a memorial event for Allen in San Jose on Sept. 13. For more information please see his web site at www.allenstrange.com To RSVP for this even please go to http://allenstrange.blogspot.com/

-Robin Strange

goodbye old friend.

[I'm so late to this memorial, perhaps these words will be read by none. Learned just today of his passing via SJSU's periodical.]

Coming to SJSU in the 90s, I was strangely drawn to Allen's persona, and related to him in a visceral way. Studied Comp and EA in his studio for a time. I have fond memories of Mexican street food at his house and ruminations on the cultural connections of food and music.
His food was spicy.

It's unfortunate that an explosive moment separated...

Professor
Strange taught me the fundamentals of generating acoustic sound with
electronic instruments. Every day in class was an eye popping
experience in discovering the building blocks of 'pitch' 'dynamics' and
'timber;' and how to build musical tone from scratch. He also turned me
onto The Santa Cruz New Music Works. And their annual "Avant-Garden
Party." This year, on June 8th, we will raise a toast to an important
composer, a great teacher, and an all around...

I only stumbled upon this guest book while looking for my own father's obituary, so I hadn't heard that Allen had died. Allen Strange had a significant impact on the art of synthesized music in its early days. He wrote an excellent text on electronic music which I used for several years in my own university teaching. He was a fine musician who had insightful and original ideas about music in general. It was always fun and stimulating to be in his presence. He deserves our admiration and...

I can't count how many times I have eaten at the Strange table in my childhood - my time in their house are some of my treasured memories. Good food, good music, wonderful people. What more could you want?
I am so, so sorry for your loss.
[email protected]

If Robin Strange, or Pat sees this, I would like to know when the 'life celebration' is going to be in the Bay Area. Please contact me at tconrardy at earthlink.net .

I got to visit Allen during the summer, and he gave me some nice stuff on CD, including to my surprise, his latest Opus called 'brief visits to imaginary places'. I just got done with a mastering session with Robert Rich ( http://www.robertrich.com ) in which we cleaned up the tracks and made them sound great. The pieces...

I too was a student of Allen's; "CM 3" as they called it back in the early 80s. The imagination and creativity he used/showed in class stays with me to this day, especially as I am now teaching this material. I particularly delight in building on his approach of teaching ground bass/passacaglia concepts using pop/rock music (I always credit him to my students for the original idea). His positive encouragement and approachability was a great help to me in the early stages of my education, and...

Hello Pat,

I hope you remember me from CSUF. I was visiting with Steve Hinton (whom I think you will also remember) just yesterday and we were looking over the Phi Mu Alpha directory and there was Allen's name. Today I decided to look him up on the Internet and sadly found that he passed away. My deepest sympathy. Although it was forty years ago, I still have fond memories of Allen. He was a great deal of fun to be around and had such a creative and brilliant mind. From reading...