Morton Feldman. A composer of vangurdia, he was born in New York in 1926 and died in Buffalo in 1987. He studied composition with Wallingford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe. In the 1950s, when he was much more influenced by artists of Abstract Expressionism than by other composers, he began to use a method of graphical notation that included devices that indicated the duration of a note by means of a horizontal stroke, or that specified with a ciphers the number of notes that should be played in a segment. Tone and rhythm were indicated in very general terms, since the main interest was centered in the manipulation of contrasting densities and timbres, generally played with great softness. After various experiments during the 1960s, Feldman returned to conventional notation for his compositions. His music was typically minimalist in its simplicity, austerity, and meditative quality. He explored original tones through slow, spaced repetitions of soft, disconnected sounds, thus creating a calm and ethereal environment.