Steve the Composer

F & I No. 8: STEVE TITTLE
Steve Tittle was born May 20, 1935 in Ohio. After his school years as a trumpet player in concert and jazz bands, and four years as a U.S. Navy musician, he studied music education and composition at Kent State University. Following three years of school music teaching he went on to study composition at the University of Wisconsin and he has received the degrees Master of Music (1966) and Doctor of Musical Arts (1974) from that institution.
Since 1970 Tittle has taught in the Music Department of Dalhousie University in Halifax, where he was the founder/director of the Experimental Sound Studio and the experimental-music group Murphy's Law, with its ongoing series of concerts since 1974. He was a founding member (1972) of the Halifax new-music organization inNOVAtions in MUSIC, and served as its artistic director from 1982-86. He has also given concerts and produced an LP as a solo performer (with tape) under the name (one of the) merely players. Since 1990 he has been a member of the new Halifax composer/performer-collective UPSTREAM, for which he continues to compose new (and re-arrange older) music.
In addition to his many works in the standard concert-music genres, Tittle has often composed for tape/live combinations, jazz groups, radio plays, dance and theatre productions, and other collaborations, He has also scored several documentary films (for the NFB and others) and has done arranging for everything from small groups to full orchestra.
Tittle feels that his style has been influenced by nearly everything in his background, including jazz and various non-European musics. Striving for a balance between structural clarity and intuitive spontaneity, he hopes that the style is reasonably accessible even in the more complex pieces.
Information from the Canadian Music Centre website.