Pitch Perfect: Columbia Music Department Embraces Microtonal Music of Georg Friedrich Haas

MacDowell Professor of Music Georg Friedrich Haas’ visceral music blends the Austrian tradition of grand orchestral statement with contemporary trends in harmonic color and microtonality, a system that divides the conventional scale of Western classical music into many more than its usual 12 semitone pitches. Critics have described his avant-garde compositions as “exploratory and uncompromising,” yet also “lush and evocative.””