The United States has spawned numerous composers so original that they were initially rejected as eccentrics. Among the best known are Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, John Cage, and Lou Harrison. For many years, rumours told of another such musician, Conlon Nancarrow. Secluded in Mexico, he was said to be composing some of the most explosive music of the century.

Born in 1912 in Texarkana, Arkansas, Nancarrow attended the Cincinnati Conservatory (1929-1932) and worked privately in Boston with three leaders of American new music, Nicolas Slonimsky, Walter Piston, and Roger Sessions. Nancarrow considered his counterpoint studies with Sessions his only formal compositional training. In 1937, after completing his studies, Nancarrow joined the international fighters gathering in Spain to combat Francisco Franco’s military coup. Upon returning to the United States in 1939 and settling in New Yo