Lucia Dlugoszewski: A Life in Sound

Born on June 16, 1925, in Detroit, Michigan, to Polish immigrant parents, Lucia Dlugoszewski (pronounced LOO-sha dwoo-goh-SHEF-skee) was immersed in the arts from a young age, playing piano, composing music, and writing poetry. She initially pursued studies in chemistry and pre-medicine at Wayne State University, but by the late 1940s, music had become her primary focus.  Her birth name was “Lucille”, but in her twenties she opted to use “Lucia” instead.

In 1949, she was awarded a fellowship that brought her to New York City, where she studied piano with Grete Sultan and explored composition and theory under the guidance of Edgard Varèse. During this period, she also became acquainted with John Cage, who played an early role in shaping her engagement with the avant-garde community.

By the early 1950s, Dlugoszewski was deeply embedded in New York’s experimental arts scene—mixing with painters, poets, dancers, theater artists, and filmmakers in the loft concerts and underground venues of downtown Manhattan.

She collaborated with key figures in experimental theater, including Judith Malina and Julian Beck’s Living Theatre, and composed music for avant-garde films such as Jonas Mekas’s Guns of the Trees and Marie Menken’s Visual Variations on Noguchi. She was briefly part of Cage’s circle and engaged with the techniques of Henry Cowell and others working with extended piano techniques. But by 1952, she had begun developing a distinctive artistic voice, expanding beyond these influences into something uniquely her own.

Dlugoszewski’s innovations in sound exploration took shape during these formative years. She developed what she called “Timbre Piano,” a performance practice centered on direct interaction with the strings and frame of the piano using mallets, objects, and other unconventional techniques. This approach differed from Cage’s prepared piano, which altered the instrument’s sound by inserting objects between the strings but largely retained the use of the keyboard for playing. Dlugoszewski’s fascination with sound extended beyond traditional instruments, focusing on what she called “everyday sounds.” She explored the sonic possibilities of materials like water pouring from one vessel to another, rice cascading onto a surface, and the subtle textures of paper tearing. This interest in everyday sounds paralleled the work of John Cage, whose 1952 piece Water Music also incorporated non-instrumental sound sources. However, while Cage often emphasized the theatrical or indeterminate aspects of these sonic elements, Dlugoszewski approached them for their pure sonic potential, integrating them seamlessly into her compositions.

Around 1958, Dlugoszewski began developing what she called an “orchestra of 100 invented percussion instruments.” This collection included ladder harps, tangent rattles, square drums, and many other one-of-a-kind instruments, designed and built in collaboration with sculptor Ralph Dorazio, a childhood friend. Her innovation was not just in creating new instruments but in conceptualizing them in sets—akin to the choirs of strings or winds in an orchestra. These percussion instruments were constructed in different sizes and materials, allowing for a wide range of timbral variation. She also developed unique performance techniques for them, expanding the expressive possibilities of percussion music. Initially, Dlugoszewski designed these instruments for herself as a solo performer, but over time, they became a defining feature of many of her compositions.

Dlugoszewski and Erick Hawkins met in 1950, beginning what would become one of the longest choreographer-composer partnerships in history, lasting from 1951 until Hawkins’ death in 1994. As biographer Amy Beal has noted, their collaboration may be second in duration only to that of John Cage and Merce Cunningham, whose partnership spanned from 1942 to 1992. Together, they created over twenty works and toured extensively, performing across the United States and internationally for decades. Although deeply intertwined artistically, they chose to keep their personal relationship largely private. They married in 1962 but kept this fact hidden from all but their closest friends. It was not until Hawkins’ eulogy in 1994 that Dlugoszewski publicly acknowledged their marriage.

Rather than choreographing to pre-existing music, or composing to fit predetermined choreography, their creative process appears to have been highly collaborative and iterative. It seems that their work often began with prose writings outlining the philosophical ideas they wanted to express, followed by the creation of large-scale structural frameworks that were often complex and asymmetrical. At a certain stage, they would refine these structures into an agreed-upon system of counts and bars, which became the foundation for both the choreography and the music.

Though much of her early career was defined by dance, by the 1970s, Dlugoszewski was receiving major commissions and building a reputation in concert music. In 1973, she was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Festival to compose Fire Fragile Flight. Two years later, Abyss and Caress for trumpet and orchestra, commissioned for Gerard Schwarz, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez. During this period, she also wrote Tender Theater Flight Nagiere for brass quintet and percussion and Angels of the Inmost Heaven for brass quintet, both composed for the American Brass Quintet. In 1980, the Library of Congress commissioned Amor Empty Elusive August, which was premiered by the Boehm Quintette. Space is a Diamond for solo trumpet and Abyss and Caress were among the few of her works published by Margun, suggesting a promising expansion of her career beyond dance. However, no additional works were ever published.

Seemingly on the edge of a breakthrough, the 1980s proved to be a difficult decade for Dlugoszewski. According to biographer Amy Beal, her output slowed in part due to long periods spent in Detroit caring for her aging mother, whose declining health required Dlugoszewski’s care for extended periods until her passing in 1988. The stress of balancing family responsibilities with creative work is evident in her journals, as well as in letters from commissioners expressing frustration over delayed scores. Soon after her return to New York, she quickly assumed a caretaker role for Hawkins, whose health was also in decline.

Despite these personal challenges, she composed several major chamber works in the late 1980s and 1990s, including what is often regarded as a major achievement in her catalog, Disparate Radical Stairway Other, a 1995 string quartet commissioned by Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project for Erick Hawkins’ dance piece Journey of a Poet.

As part of her creative process, Dlugoszewski often created long, scrolling graphic drawings referred to as “Maps,” which depicted the overall structure and key moments of many of her compositions. These Maps reveal an emphasis on timbre and dynamic variation rather than conventional rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic priorities. Intervallic relationships and the ratio of time played a central role in her thinking, with pitch often approached from a timbral perspective rather than a purely harmonic one.

After Hawkins’ death in 1994, Dlugoszewski became increasingly involved in the Erick Hawkins Dance Company. Named Artistic Director, she took on a more active role in its day-to-day operations. In addition to leading the company’s artistic direction, she became its principal choreographer, creating new works that honored Hawkins’ legacy while reflecting her own artistic vision.

On April 11, 2000, Dlugoszewski passed away in her Manhattan home at the age of 74. That same evening, the Erick Hawkins Dance Company premiered her full-length work Motherwell Amor at the 92nd Street Y. The piece, which she both choreographed and composed, was inspired by the paintings of Robert Motherwell, a close friend of Dlugoszewski and Hawkins. Though her absence was deeply felt, the company honored her legacy by carrying forward the performance as planned.